


Build These Walls Anew

by virdant



Series: A House in the Sun [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Arranged Marriage, Dalton Academy, Ghost Marriage, Ghosts, M/M, Recovery, Romance, Season 2 AU, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, Trauma, Trauma and recovery, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-02-23 10:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 71,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13188312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: When Blaine was fifteen, he married his dead betrothed. In the months after, he grew to know Sebastian, dreaming of him every night in long, increasingly intimate dreams. But, weeks before his sophomore year at Dalton, the dreams end, and Sebastian disappears. Blaine makes a decision; he sends his soul searching: into his past, into his future, into the realm of the dead.Sequel toA Shifting Foundation





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Mikachi, who started this mess, Pannchi, who unflinchingly alpha-read this entire 70k monstrosity despite not even being in the fandom, and Adzusai, who was remarkably patient with me during this entire four month process. You three are amazing to me. Thanks also to Ellie, for putting up with my many complaints during lunch about how I just wanted to write an action-adventure. It is not an action-adventure. 
> 
> Also thanks to everybody else, especially the folks on tumblr who followed me throughout this mess while i wrote this. You folks are great. I really appreciate all the support you provided.
> 
>  
> 
> Sequel to A Shifting Foundation. You should read that first before starting this fic.

The cicadas were buzzing.

Blaine clenched his eyes shut, listening to the steady chirping growing louder and louder even as he struggled to return to sleep. A month away, and he had already forgotten what it meant to spend a summer in Ohio. His heart rattled in his chest even as he took long even breaths, letting the cicadas cut, discordant, through the melody lingering from his dreams.

He opened his eyes to the ceiling of his husband’s childhood bedroom.

The cicadas were still buzzing. Blaine frowned, briefly, trying to remember his dream.

Had Sebastian been in it?

He sat up, glancing out the window—the cicadas buzzing, the sun spilling in through the curtains, the summer heat extending its sticky tendrils through the blanket of the air conditioning—and Sebastian hadn’t been in his dream.

“Husband,” he mouthed.

He hadn’t appeared since his flight from Paris: a trans-Atlantic to New York for a week, and then a perpetually delayed domestic flight to Columbus. A week where Blaine had stopped by the temple in the hotel to light incense with grandmothers in the morning and children dragged along with their parents in the evening.

Sebastian had been unnervingly absent.

He frowned, pulling the curtains aside to stare into the Smythe’s backyard. He had leveraged his experience in an all-boy acapella group into a summer job as an atmospheric performer, singing and dancing in ludicrously large shoes as parents ushered their children through winding crowds. Sebastian had laughed himself sick after Blaine’s first day, cackling until Blaine had given up and hurled pillows at his husband’s head.

Sebastian had caught the first pillow with ease, using it to bat away the others. “Blaine,” he had said. “Have you _seen_ yourself?”

Blaine had huffed. “I _did_ look in a mirror before I went outside.”

Sebastian had laughed again, long enough for Blaine to retrieve a pillow and fling it half-heartedly at his face. “At least you sound good,” Sebastian had said, shaking his head as he deflected it again. He had eyed him appreciatively before saying, “And your ass always looks good.”

“Sebastian!”

Blaine stepped away from the window, still frowning. Sebastian had been a steady presence throughout a summer of hot and humid performances, appearing in every dream. Even after his summer job had ended and he had left for Paris to visit Sebastian’s mother, his husband had appeared without fail. He had stroked his hand through Blaine’s curls after a long day at work. He had tugged him by the wrist through hot sands and warm waves. He had pressed promises into Blaine’s fingers in a fitful nap across the Atlantic.

He drifted, restless, across Sebastian’s bedroom— _their_ bedroom, his fingers trailing over the bookshelf tightly wedged with Blaine’s books on top of Sebastian’s childhood collection. A week without Sebastian; he hadn’t spent his dreams alone since their fight eight months ago. Last time, it had taken a shrine in the corner of his dormitory: a cabinet from a dusty storage room, incense from his husband’s closet, a photo from the family medium and a frame from a friend. It had taken weeks, but Sebastian had come back to him.

Sebastian would come back.

He padded down the stairs to the family shrine, lighting a stick of incense and setting it into the pot. Sebastian smiled back at him from his spot in the center, the other Smythe relatives behind him in an array of solemn gazes. Reflected in the glass of the frame, Blaine could see himself: as somber as the Smythes that had come before him.

“Sebastian,” he murmured into sweet agarwood smoke. “Where did you go?”

 

* * *

 

He drove into Columbus after calling Albert Smythe. The Smythe family medium had readily agreed to meet upon receiving Blaine’s phone call, and—having turned sixteen four months ago—Blaine no longer needed to negotiate rides with Wes. Spared a lecture, Blaine carefully made his way into the city and his husband’s cousin’s office.

“How was Paris?” Albert asked, offering him tea. Blaine eyed the steam rising from the cup balefully, but took it and sipped nonetheless. He could feel his shirt drying tacky against his skin under the unrelenting drone of the air conditioning.

“It was nice,” Blaine responded. Two weeks in Paris alone with Sebastian’s mother had been a surprise, but he had taken the time to explore the sights. She had indulged him on all of the tourist attractions, and he had spent several days with her sitting outside cafes watching the people stroll by. “It made me wish I had taken French.”

He chuckled appropriately, settling down behind his desk. “Did you go anywhere else?”

“New York for a week.” He smiled wanly. “I went with my parents.”

“That must have been fun.”

“It was.” With his parents, he had felt less isolated in the crowds that ebbed and flowed. His father had asked about his upcoming class schedule, and his mother had asked about the Warblers. Blaine had found it easy to talk about both.

Albert Smythe hummed in agreement. He turned the tea cup, once, and then looked up. He folded his hands and leaned forward and, finally, asked, “Why did you ask to see me, Blaine?”

He took a deep breath. “Sebastian’s gone.”

Albert Smythe echoed, “Gone?”

“It’s been a week.” A week since his last dream of Sebastian, the two of them hooking ankles under a table on the streets of Paris; Sebastian stealing bites out of Blaine’s crepe; Sebastian murmuring a promise to show him to his former haunts the next time Blaine visited. Blaine had boarded a flight for Ohio and his husband had stopped appearing in his dreams. He had hoped that it was the week with his parents in Manhattan, praying at an unfamiliar temple shrine adjacent to their hotel—that when he returned to Ohio and the familiar bedroom of Sebastian’s childhood, his husband would return.

Instead, he had woken up after another dream alone.

“Tell me about your dreams without Sebastian.”

“I don’t remember.” Blaine said. Before Sebastian, he had been blessed with rare, but vivid, dreams. He would remember one dream out of a dozen, but the dream would be vibrantly pressed into his memory for weeks afterwards. After Sebastian, he would wake up remembering his encounters in lucid detail. For the past week, Blaine’s dreams had been hazy, and he would wake up with only murky memories of dread.

Albert said, “Most people aren’t visited by benevolent husbands.”

Blaine said, “I am.”

He looked up and smiled, briefly. “I know.” He resumed staring at his tea cup. “You’re close—and you maintain closer contact with Sebastian than I do. I’ve helped aunts with hauntings and cousins with seances, but none of that applies to you.”

“Then—”

“Did you have a fight?”

Blaine shook his head. “Not this time.”

“Neglected him?”

“I left offerings on the temple shrine in Manhattan.”

“Misplaced a treasured possession of his?”

Blaine shook his head. “Can’t you contact him?”

Albert blinked, slowly. “Blaine,” he said. “He visits your dreams every night.”

Blaine blinked back.

“You’re already far more connected to Sebastian than any of the family.” He sighed. “If you can’t reach out to him—”

Blaine whispered, “Then?”

“I’ll try,” he said, finally. “That’s all I can promise, Blaine.”

He nodded.

Albert Smythe stared at him with something Blaine recognized as sympathy. “Blaine,” he began.

Blaine stared back.

Outside, August had arrived in earnest. The summer heat had settled like a blanket, the air conditioning unit churning away in a vague attempt to chase the humidity away. His toes curled in his shoes, and he had never wished more for sandals in that moment—for the rough sands of the beach and the dull roar of the tides as they swept everything away.

“Blaine,” he said, so carefully. “I want you to consider if he didn’t come back.”

 

* * *

 

Blaine moved back into Dalton.

He had been assigned the same room as his freshman year, his personal shrine still intact in the corner of space between the foot of his bed and the wall. The relief that came with familiarity was marred by the fact that it was approaching two weeks of silence in his dreams.

Blaine was beginning to forget what it meant to dream of his husband.

He had yet to hear from Albert, since that oppressive day in Columbus. He had yet to hear from Sebastian either, his dreams as hazy as the agarwood smoke that filled the crevasses of the Smythe home. As summer wound down, he found his spine knotting tighter and tighter, his hands tense on the silverware during dinners with his father-in-law, his jaw too tense to sing.

Moving back into his dormitory room was almost a relief. He had dropped his bags in the doorway in favor of wiping down the cabinet and filling the pot with fresh sand from the dorm’s supply. His photo of Sebastian—still framed, still intact after two trans-Atlantic flights—made its way to the cabinet top. His clothes strewn across the floor, he bowed over the incense newly pilfered from the Smythe family shrine and prayed—

_Sebastian_.

He was still unpacked, still kneeling with his head bowed, still praying when Nick and Jeff stopped by to compare their class schedules.

“We’re going to die,” Nick groaned. “Why did we all decide on four AP courses this year?”

Blaine shook his head with grim-faced dread, shaking the stiffness out of his knees. He knew why he had registered for four AP courses in his sophomore year, and the reason was conveniently absent from his dreams.

Jeff peered over Blaine’s shoulder, eying the blanks for independent music study that hadn’t been there the fall of his Freshman year. “Blaine,” he asked, “are you auditioning for a competition solo?”

He shrugged.

Before the summer, he had discussed the possibility with Wes; they had spent several evenings selecting appropriate audition songs and rehearsing them. Sebastian had lounged in his childhood bed and listened to the options, before shaking his head and saying, “They’d have to be mad to not give you a solo.”

“Oh?” he had asked, unable to help the grin curving of his mouth. “Tell me more, Husband.”

“What should I tell you?” Sebastian had propped his chin up on an elbow, smirking back. “Shall I tell you that your breath control is impeccable, that your sense of pitch is unparalleled, that your ear for dynamics is some of the best I’ve heard?”

Blaine blushed.

“Shall I tell you that when you sing, I can’t look away?”

“Sebastian—”

“That you have a magnetism that draws me in and keeps me captured?” He stared steadily at Blaine. “What should I tell you, Husband?”

Blaine stepped back. “You could have just said you liked it,” he mumbled.

Sebastian’s mouth relaxed. They had stared at each other for a long time, the silence of the dream settling over them, even as the titles of the books on Sebastian’s bookshelf faded into illegible calligraphy, the bedspread drained of color, and the walls began to fade like smoke. They had stared at each other until the room eased away, until it was just Sebastian: the curve of his cheekbones, the solemn set of his mouth, his green eyes staring at Blaine and never looking away.

“You sing like a dream,” he had said, finally. “And I never want to wake up.”

Blaine’s mouth was very dry as he whispered, “Yes.” He cleared his throat, a furious ache for his husband clinging to it. “A solo. Among other things,” he said, blinking the memory away.

Jeff eyed him, but didn’t say anything else. Blaine didn’t mention the piano and violin, the guitar and cello—all of the instruments that had played second fiddle to singing growing up. He had set them aside for his (second) freshman year, preoccupied with a new school, a new husband, the foundations of his life shifting with every step he took. He had mentioned that he had missed it; he had been persuaded to add it to his courses.

He fell silent as he trailed Nick and Jeff out the dorms to the courtyards, listening as they argued over whether or not Thad really deserved to sit on the Warbler council. As the previous school year had ended, Thad had run an aggressive campaign to earn him a seat beside Wes and David—who both had been nominated and elected as a matter of course. It meant that he had one of the coveted Council positions as a sophomore, and Blaine had been duly impressed; Sebastian—

“Hey.” Wes had a fire in one of the red metal pots that the RAs lent out, burning sheets of paper money. Behind him was a folding table laden with fruits, a bowl of incense, and pastries from the bakery just off-campus still wrapped in plastic. He threw another handful of money into the fire, and Blaine tracked the smoke as it rose into the air. “Welcome back.”

Nick said, “Hey.” Jeff nodded. Blaine inhaled deeply, the humidity of the summer and the heat from the fire beading along the back of his neck and dripping down his thin tee shirt. Wes, standing even closer to the fire, seemed unfazed even in jeans and a button-up.

“Want to make an offering?” he asked. He peeled off another handful of notes and tossed it in. Blaine inhaled burnt paper and ink, darker and smokier than the agarwood he lit in his room.

“Nah.” Nick shook his head. “In this heat?”

Jeff asked, “Why are you making offerings anyways?”

“We’re moving in in the middle of ghost month,” Wes said, watching the smoke curl in the air. He raised an eyebrow at them. “Did none of you pay attention when you moved in last year?”

Blaine glanced at Nick and Jeff, who were grinning at each other sheepishly.

Wes shook his head, tapping the stack of paper against his free palm. “Want to make an offering?” he asked again, his raised eyebrow and pointed tone making the correct answer clear.

Nick grimaced, but Blaine stepped forward to accept a stack of paper and drop it into the flames, pressing forward through the heat of the fire on his face. He tracked the smoke as it drifted upward, money for the abandoned dead, and thought of Sebastian.

Sebastian had pressed his nose against his neck, his breath warm as he whispered, “About that red envelope money.” He had teased and badgered until Blaine’s protests were choked underneath laughter and promises to burn a stack of the currency of the dead for him; Sebastian had pulled back, then, to cup Blaine’s cheek in a wide palm, to lean his forehead against Blaine’s.

“Promise?”

Wes interrupted his thoughts. “Nick? Jeff?”

Blaine stepped back, into the summer heat of Ohio, a breeze brushing across his cheeks. August was fading into September, classes were starting soon, and Sebastian—

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he drifted away from the others, his hands trembling as he unlocked the phone.

“Hello?” he said.

“Blaine,” Albert Smythe said. “Can we talk?”

 

* * *

 

Blaine had spent just over three months in St. Ivers. It had been long enough for him to almost fail a math test, audition and get into the performance choir, and ask a boy out to a dance. In the long months after he had been released from the hospital, Blaine had woken up with long gaps in his memory where dreams should have been.

He had only started to regain his dreams before Sebastian. He had only started to dream again—vivid color and the low susurrus of sound—when Sebastian had appeared, in a Dalton blazer and his hair swept back, as if he had always attended Dalton, as if he had always been a part of Blaine’s life, as if they had known each other since that day their parents had betrothed them.

Two days into his sophomore year at Dalton Academy, Blaine bent over his books in the library and struggled to focus on introductory French.

He could remember, from a month ago in Paris: Sebastian, vibrant and present as he coaxed Blaine’s throat and tongue into forming new sounds. “All of that singing practice has come in handy.” Sebastian had laughed, corrected Blaine’s pronunciation, and let his toes brush against Blaine’s ankle. Blaine had woken up with the memory of Sebastian’s voice, but none of the hard-won muscle memory of his dreams.

They were just that—dreams, and nothing more. For all of the hours that Blaine had spent getting to know his husband, he had never touched him, never heard his voice, never seen him with his own eyes. He had months of memories of a husband he had never met. He had years of a future married to a ghost.

Albert had said, “I can’t reach Sebastian.”

“But you have to,” Blaine had protested before he could stop himself. He hadn’t considered a situation where Albert Smythe had been unable to reach his husband. “You’re the Smythe family medium,” he said, schooling his voice with years of vocal control. “Shouldn’t you be able to contact Sebastian?”

Albert had inhaled, loud enough that Blaine could hear it through the phone, over the crackle of the fire, over Wes and Nick and Jeff chattering as they peeled paper from the stack and dropped it into the flames. “That’s the problem. He’s not there.”

Blaine clutched at his pencil, the words on the page indecipherable.

Over the phone, Albert had carefully explained the seances he had held, the meditation he had undergone, the prayers and rituals to connect himself to the Smythe ancestors in the afterlife. Each attempt had been a failure to reach Sebastian.

“I’ve reached over ancestors, and they all say the same thing. Sebastian’s not there.”

Since Sebastian had disappeared from his dreams, he had been missing from the afterlife as well. It was as if somebody had flipped a switch and snatched Sebastian away.

Blaine had hoped that meeting Albert would have brought Sebastian back to him. After that fruitless meeting in Columbus, he had waited for Albert’s phone call in hopes that it would be announcing Sebastian’s return. In the scant days since, he had found himself staying up later and later, putting off sleep as long as Sebastian was absent.

He blinked furiously before giving up French homework as a failure. Slumping in his seat, he considered the rest of his assignments: chapters to read and worksheets to complete. Mr. Ross had promised a quiz in AP Chemistry next week, the Warblers had auditions coming up, and he still couldn’t understand his French homework.

Churlishly, he thought: _Sebastian had promised to help_.

He shuffled his papers into their appropriate binders, sliding them alongside his textbooks into his bag and slinging it over a shoulder. He made his way back to his dorm room slowly, each step weighted with something heavier than his textbooks. The stick of incense he had lit that morning was still burning, the room heavy with agarwood smoke despite the window he had left open.

He stood in the center of the room, staring at the ember at the tip of the incense. He let the bag fall to the floor, let his feet carry him forward to the photo of Sebastian—to the ember dipping closer and closer to the sand.

“Sebastian,” Blaine began. “I don’t understand.”

He unpacked his day: his classes, the notes that Jeff and Nick had passed between them, Thad’s increasingly frustrated expression as he ignored the teachers in favor of scribbling notes of his own on a piece of scrap paper. The Warblers had started meeting again, even though auditions for new members and soloists wouldn’t be formally held until September. He had spent an hour in the practice rooms, letting his fingers relearn the piano.

He stopped talking when his mouth ran dry, and he rocked back to his feet, suddenly loathe to go to bed.

“I wish…” he said, at last, as the last of the incense burned out. “I wish you’d come back.”

Again, he didn’t dream.

 

* * *

 

He called Albert again.

“Blaine,” he said. He didn’t sound exasperated, which Blaine took as a victory. “I thought I said I would contact you if I reached Sebastian.”

He had. Blaine explained, “It’s September in a week.”

Albert took a short breath. “Yes,” he said.

Sebastian had died in September—in the very beginning of it. Last year, Blaine hadn’t been present for his funeral—he had been cremated in Paris, his ashes had been sent back to Ohio, and Blaine had ignored his betrothed’s family until their wedding ceremony in November.

“Blaine,” he said. “That doesn’t mean he’ll appear.”

“I know,” Blaine said.

When he wasn’t at Warbler practice of the music practice rooms, Blaine spent his time in the library with the other sophomores. Thad joined them when he didn’t have lacrosse practice, but usually it was the four of them: Blaine, Nick, Jeff, and Trent bent over their books. Between Nick and Jeff reenacting Shakespeare, Blaine found himself settling into a routine of coffee and studying, water and rehearsal, incense and prayers at the shrine in his room.

He stared at his phone for a long time, lying in Sebastian’s bed. They had spent countless dreams in this bed: Sebastian sitting against the headboard while Blaine tucked his chin into the crook of his shoulder; the two of them lying with their backs against each other; Sebastian’s hand warm on Blaine’s ankle after a fight, the two of them unwilling to look at each other, but still connected.

When he closed his eyes, he could no longer see Sebastian’s face.

On the other side of the line, the phone rang, once, twice, three times, and then connected.

“Tala,” Blaine breathed. “Tala, I need your help.”

 

* * *

 

 

“No,” Albert said.

Blaine shook his head. “Sebastian’s my husband.”

“You are asking me to send you to the afterlife,” Albert said. His hands were very steady as he sorted candles into their appropriate drawers of the cabinet. “You are asking me to rip your soul from your body and send it on so you can hunt down Sebastian. The answer is no.”

“Tala would do it.”

He slammed the drawer shut. “You’re a Smythe, now.”

Blaine stared back. He took a deep breath. “Tala would do it,” he said, again, firmly enough that Albert Smythe would understand what he meant. If Albert didn’t do it, then Blaine would go to his cousin.

“This is ridiculous,” Albert snapped. “Sebastian is dead. He’s been dead for the year, and even if you’ve made the unfortunate mistake of marrying his ghost, the deed is done.”

“I made a promise.” Blaine tilted his chin up, squaring his shoulders.

He shook his head, ripping open another box, this time revealing dozens of smaller packages of incense. “You’re a Smythe now,” he said. “You’ve married Sebastian’s spirit and you’ve committed the rest of your life to what that means. As the Smythe family medium, I’m telling you to let it go.”

“No.”

“Blaine!”

Blaine said, “You said yourself that you can’t reach him. You’ve said that Sebastian and I, we’re connected in a way that you can’t replicate.”

Albert snorted. “That didn’t mean I was telling you to go on some misguided quest to another world.”

“Why not?” Blaine spread his hands out. “Sebastian’s missing. Souls don’t just go missing for no reason.”

“Because you could die!” Albert shouted. He jerked to his feet, a box of incense spilling across the hardwood floors of the Columbus office. “Sebastian’s soul is missing in the realm of the dead, and you want to go off after it?”

Blaine blinked. “Yes.”

He shook his head in disgust, bending to pick up the sticks. “You haven’t even been married for a year.”

“I get attached easily,” Blaine said, his heart pounding in his ears. He tucked his fingers into his pockets to keep them from trembling in plain sight. “Are you going to do it?”

He looked down at the incense. “Give me the number of your medium cousin.” He looked up. “And don’t look so smug.”

That weekend, Blaine left Dalton and made the quiet drive to Sebastian’s home. Even after almost a year of marriage, he still thought of the austere house as Sebastian’s home, not his own. Still, the route was familiar after months of weekends, the occasional family dinner, and a summer in Sebastian’s room. He drove on autopilot, his mind blank as he passed through the neighborhood, the streets still lined with tables laden with offerings, a few neighbors standing outside burning paper currency for the abandoned ghosts.

Albert and Tala were waiting for him in the foyer. His father-in-law was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t help the faint relief that Alexander Smythe wouldn’t be present to watch him attempt to find Sebastian’s soul.

Tala greeted him, “If we do this, you’ll never be able to go back. You’ll always be haunted by ghosts.”

“By Sebastian,” Blaine said, sorting his laundry into the appropriate hampers.

“Blaine,” Tala said. They had grown up together, spending summers with each other’s families, winters and new years with their mutual grandparents. Six years older but a daughter, Tala had spent more time with Blaine than with eldest son Cooper, and she had always been able to read him better than his own brother. “Don’t take this lightly.”

He would open his soul and spend the rest of his living days tied to the realm of the dead. He would hear his ancestors if they called for him, would be haunted by the spirits with unresolved deaths. When the gates to the afterlife opened, the hungry ghosts would flock to his home first. 

But he would be able to find Sebastian.

“I know,” he said. “Do it anyways.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/jsp1d6vpa191szt/btwa_chapter1.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/169312425231/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew)


	2. Chapter 2

Blaine had two types of dreams.

Dreams with Sebastian had no beginning and no end. He would close his eyes and open them to Sebastian’s hand on his ankle, his wrist, his shoulder. Lucid, Blaine would spend hours, even days, within a single dream. They hiked up mountains that Blaine had never seen before, they meandered through the streets of Paris, they burrowed their toes in the sand and let the sun bathe them in warm light. Blaine woke aware of every single detail, and the memories of his dreams lingered like salt against his skin.

Dreams without Sebastian always started the same way.

Blaine stumbled to his feet even as the dream consolidated around him, familiar terror damping as he grew more aware of his surroundings. Mist rolled against his feet, following his footsteps as he stepped forward. He inhaled, clean air, perfumed with just the hint of agarwood.

He frowned.

“So you’re Sebastian’s husband.”

Blaine whirled, stumbling backwards. He flung an arm back to catch himself, and his fingers scrabbled across a smooth wall until they caught on a wooden cabinet. He glanced behind him, already knowing what he would see—mahogany with gold accents, dozens of tiny drawers lined with ornate handles, a bowl of fruit overflowing on top of the cabinet, and a dozen—

No.

A bowl of fruit on the top of the cabinet, already half empty, and no photos.

It was the Smythe family shrine; it was not the Smythe family shrine.

He took a deep breath—the agarwood scent was stronger, now that he was facing the cabinet—and turned, searching for the voice.

A smiling girl, no older than fourteen, stared up at him, familiar green eyes framed by soft brown hair.

“Hi,” he choked.

“Hi,” she chirped back, swinging the skirt of her floral dress with one hand. “Blaine, right?”

He nodded, bending to extend his hand for her to shake. She skipped forward and shook it with firm aplomb. “And you are?”

Still holding his hand, the girl beamed. “Linda Smythe.” Her grin turned decidedly mischievous. “Sebastian’s aunt.”

Blaine choked.

“You married into a good family,” she said, tossing her long hair back. “Us Smythes age well. Though, luckily, I’m blessed with an early death.”

Sebastian had died young. “I wouldn’t consider that a blessing,” Blaine managed.

“Well, most people wouldn’t. But between you and me, being dead isn’t all that bad.”

Blaine grinned weakly back.

“And baby Alex always burns the good stuff.”

Alex. Alexander Smythe. Sebastian’s father.

 _Baby Alex_.

“But what are you doing here?” She pulled him close to peer into his eyes. “You aren’t dead,” she said. “I can tell.” With her free hand, she poked him in the forehead; Blaine winced and she frowned. “But you aren’t alive either.”

Blaine untangled his hand from her terrifyingly strong grip and said, “I’m here to find Sebastian.”

“Oh,” she said, rocking back on her heels. “He’s not here.”

Blaine bit his lip. “I know,” he said. “Albert told me.” He glanced around—hardwood floors and wood paneling. The Smythe home was replicated almost perfectly; he wondered how many deceased Smythes resided in this facsimile of Sebastian’s house. “He said that none of you have seen Sebastian in weeks.”

“We haven’t,” Linda confirmed, swinging the skirt with a hand again.

He hesitated. “Do you know where he’s gone?”

She frowned up at him, wide green eyes and cheeks still round with youth. “No,” she said guilelessly. “Isn’t he with you?”

 

* * *

 

He woke up in a cold sweat.

“You’re back,” Tala exclaimed, jerking out of a doze of her own. Blaine lurched forward, Tala’s hands steading him; he had been sleeping on the couch in the Smythe family room. Beside her, Albert lay slumped in an oversized armchair of his own, his cheek tucked into the palm of his hand. Albert blinked and yawned, his bleary gaze incongruous with the rapid pounding of Blaine’s heart in his ears. He squinted at Blaine for a long minute before saying, “I’ll get Uncle Alex.”

Alex. Blaine closed his eyes and sipped at the water Tala offered him. He forced himself to inhale deeply, pressing a hand against his abdomen to feel his lungs expand and his diaphragm drop properly. _Baby Alex always burns the good stuff._ “I met his aunt,” he whispered.

Albert stopped halfway out the door. He turned around and said, more alertly, “What?”

“Linda,” Blaine rasped, blinking fiercely as he tried to remember the dream. The memories were fading, more slowly than his other dreams, but more quickly than the ones filled with Sebastian. “Linda Smythe. Sebastian’s aunt. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen.”

Albert said, “Linda,” thoughtfully, before continuing out the room. He returned a scant minute later, without Alexander Smythe, but with a framed photo that he cradled in his arms. “Her?”

Blaine took the frame carefully with both hands; the girl from his dreams beamed up at him, her smile a little more tempered. The photo was old, faded, and didn’t do the vibrancy of her green eyes—the same as Sebastian’s—justice.

“Yes,” Blaine said.

“I’m definitely getting Uncle Alex,” Albert said, striding out the room.

Blaine turned to Tala, who was holding a hand to her mouth. “So, I really did go to the realm of the dead,” he said.

She nodded. “Did you think it wouldn’t work?”

It had taken a week of preparation; Blaine had made prayers and burned offerings to Anderson and Smythe relatives alike, asking for their blessing on his journey into the realm of the dead. They had a tight schedule. Tala had said that Blaine should make his first trip before ghost month ended. Albert had wanted to wait until afterwards to prevent him from being eaten by hungry ghosts. Blaine had insisted on whatever would get him closest to Sebastian.

He admitted, “I didn’t find Sebastian.”

Her hand was warm against his forehead. She pressed the back of her palm to his cheeks, one in turn, before taking his pulse with two fingers against the inside of his wrist. “Did you think it would be easy?”

He had hoped.

“Albert would have found him,” Tala said, gently. “You know that, Blaine.”

He leaned into her hand as she brought it up to cup his cheek again. She was warm, solid, _alive_. He closed his eyes and said, “I’m tired.”

“You’ve been dreaming for two days,” Tala murmured.

Blaine froze.

“Two days?”

She inhaled, quietly. “We were worried that you wouldn’t—”

“You’re awake,” Alexander Smythe rumbled from the doorway. Blaine, as unfamiliar with his father-in-law as he was, could recognize the surprise in his voice.

He opened his eyes; Alexander Smythe stood in the doorway, sagging against the doorframe. Albert stood just behind him, carrying a plate of toast. Albert set the toast on the coffee table, pressing a damp hand against Blaine’s forehead as Tala moved away to help Alexander Smythe into a seat of his own. Blaine nibbled on the toast and repeated, “Two days?”

“It’s Monday,” Albert said.

“You’re awake,” Alexander Smythe said again, before he shook his head slightly. “What were you _thinking_?”

Blaine looked away.

“What would I have told your parents?”

He put the toast down.

“Uncle Alex,” Albert began.

“And you!” He whirled on Albert. “I expected better! Sending him to the realm of the dead?”

Albert grimaced.

“I asked,” Blaine said. He swallowed, his throat dry after days asleep. “I had to.”

Alexander Smythe snarled, “You are _sixteen_. You do not have to do anything.”

“Mr. Smythe,” Tala began.

“I had to,” Blaine repeated. He said, “I married Sebastian.”

He said, very steadily, “You are a sixteen-year-old child. You are not old enough—”

“I was old enough to marry your dead son!”

“Blaine!”

Distantly, he realized that Tala was reaching for him, that Albert had reeled back, that Sebastian’s father was staring at him with his eyes very wide.

Tala repeated, “Blaine.”

He was shaking. Blaine stared down at his hands, trembling even as his fingers curled into his palms. He breathed in through his nose, sharply; and he came back to himself.

Sebastian’s father turned and left the room.

Blaine whispered, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Albert said, very quietly, “I think you should get some rest.”

 

* * *

 

Wes said, “You did _what_?”

Blaine curled his knees into his chest, burrowing deeper into Sebastian’s bed. “It’s not a big deal,” he mumbled into his phone.

Wes made a vaguely disbelieving sound. “You went to the realm of the dead.”

“Mm. Yeah.”

He could hear Wes take a long breath. “Okay,” Wes said, finally. “You want to talk about it?”

He tucked his knees in a little tighter, adjusting the phone so it was no longer wedged between his jaw and his shoulder. He fumbled with the screen, before setting it on speakerphone and placing it on the pillow beside him. “No,” he said. “Not really.”

Wes huffed. “I’ll let your absence slide,” he said, “as long as it doesn’t happen again.”

Blaine mumbled something that he hoped Wes would take as agreement.

“I’ve already talked to Nick and Jeff, and they’ve collected your homework. Thad has the neatest handwriting, so he’ll be making a photocopy of his notes for you,” he continued. “You’re on your own for French, but David’s already talked to Madame Dubois and she should have emailed you. I’ll email you the minutes from rehearsal.”

“Okay.”

“And we’ve moved auditions to Friday.”

Blaine blinked. “Auditions,” he echoed. _Auditions_. The September auditions for competition solos were _today_. He kicked the blankets away, grimacing as they tangled in his feet. “Oh. Shit.”

“Language,” Wes admonished, but he sounded amused instead of annoyed.

“ _Auditions_ ,” Blaine repeated, his voice rising in pitch as he stumbled out of bed and began rummaging through Sebastian’s desk drawers. He was sure he had a copy of the sheet music here. “I _forgot_.”

Wes drawled, “And here I thought you wanted a competition solo.”

He did. He had spent the entire summer picking out and practicing three songs; he practiced them during his free time, spent half of his dreams memorizing lyrics under his breath while Sebastian had lounged, shirtless in bed, chin tucked into an open palm, mouth quirked in the corner and gaze lingering.

“I need to practice!” Blaine hissed. He shook the handle of the top desk drawer before yanking it open, rifling through the papers he had neatly stacked before he had moved back to Dalton. He had taken a copy of his music with him, of course. The day before he had moved back to the dorms, he had filed his three song options neatly into the plastic sleeves of his music folder and packed it into his suitcase with the rest of his music books, but he had an extra copy somewhere in Sebastian’s room. He flipped through a binder of Sebastian’s old sheet music before shoving it back to the drawer he found it in.

Wes said, “Solo auditions are on Friday.”

Blaine managed a vaguely strangled sound of joy as he finally found the music. He blinked down at the staff, at the note scrawled in the top corner—

“Blaine?”

“I’ve got to go,” Blaine said, hurriedly. He hung up, shoving the papers haphazardly back into the drawer, tripping over his feet as he rushed out the door and straight into Albert Smythe coming to check up on him.

“Blaine,” Albert hissed, catching him by the arm, “What are you doing out of bed?”

Blaine hastened, “Is he alright?”

Albert stilled, his fingers tightening uncomfortably around Blaine’s bicep before he relaxed. “Uncle Alex? He’s been better.”

“I didn’t mean to yell,” Blaine said, fresh guilt swelling over him like a wave. “I didn’t mean it. And I didn’t…”

He stopped at Albert’s somber gaze.

“He’s at the shrine,” Albert said. “You might want to apologize.”

 

* * *

 

Alexander Smythe didn’t spend much time at the shrine. In all of the weekends and holidays that Blaine had stayed at the Smythe home, he had never seen his father-in-law bowed before somber photos and fragrant incense. When he returned from Dalton after several weeks away, the shrine would have accumulated a thin layer of dust. The only evidence that Sebastian’s father had ever visited the shrine was the fine layer of ash that grew when Blaine was gone.

He was standing before the shrine now, a fresh stick of incense burning in the sand.

Blaine swallowed.

Sebastian’s father didn’t turn around; his arms hung limp at his sides, as if they didn’t know whether or not to clasp together in prayer or to hide in pockets. He stood straight and tall, but it seemed more out of habit. He stood, very still, staring steadily at Sebastian’s photo until he let out a long shuddering breath, his form sagging into sudden grief.

Blaine swallowed, and cleared his throat.

Sebastian’s father turned around, his face terribly blank and empty. He stared at Blaine for a long time, before he said, quietly, “Blaine.”

Blaine glanced at the shrine—Sebastian smiled out from his place in the front of the photos, the tip of the incense flickered in the dim light—and then turned back to his husband’s father. “Hi,” he said. He swallowed, blinking like the flickering of the ember, and said, “I’m sorry.”

Sebastian’s father turned back to the shrine, “He used to go out dancing.”

He stepped forward, not far enough to stand next to his father-in-law, but almost. Slowly, he lit a stick of incense for himself and, holding it between his palms, bowed.

Sebastian’s father watched.

Blaine hesitated, rolling the thin strip of agarwood between his hands, even as it sent smoke spiraling through the halls. He stepped forward and set it in the sand.

They stood in silence, Sebastian’s too serious gaze watching them. Each tight inhale filled his lungs with the familiar scent of agarwood. Sebastian’s father had left the last of the summer fruits, the early harvest of the autumn apples, rows of tiny plates filled with Sebastian’s favorites arrayed in tight rows along the top of the cabinet.

The embers flickered, orange.

Sebastian’s father inhaled, a ragged whisper.

Into the silence, Blaine whispered, “I don’t regret marrying him.”

“You’re only sixteen.” Each syllable was ground out with careful precision. “You were only fifteen when Sebastian—” He tilted his head back, inhaling deeply and slowly. “It’s been a year,” he said, finally.

Blaine curled an arm around his abdomen.

Sebastian’s father said nothing. He stood and stared at the shrine for another long moment before he bowed, a quick jerk of his shoulders and neck. Very quietly, he said, “We’ve already been, this morning. Albert can take you if you want to visit Sebastian’s grave tonight.”

Blaine nodded, once. “Thank you,” he rasped.

He said, “Sebastian would have liked you.”

Blaine flinched.

He could hear Alexander Smythe’s footsteps, a measured beat fading away, leaving only the echo of Blaine’s heartbeat behind.

“One year,” Blaine said, to Sebastian’s photo. “One year since you died.”

He bowed and went to find Albert.

 

* * *

 

That night, Blaine dreamed.

He was standing on the precipice, and before him stretched an empty field of fog. The sun was rising, and he couldn’t help but turn away from the light.

“Sebastian,” he called, into the silence.

The sun continued to rise.

He closed his eyes and opened them. He was still standing above a sea of fog; there was no shrine, no grave, nothing but dirt and sand and the rising sun.

“Sebastian,” he began. He knelt, tucking his bare feet underneath him as he bowed into the light. It had never been hard for him, in the previous months, to talk to his husband. But now, his husband missing, his father-in-law grieving, his plans to find Sebastian awry, the words came slowly. He transversed the emptiness of his mind before he reached them, syllables slotting themselves into his larynx in a muddled mess.

“Where did you go?” he whispered.

The sun rose, bright and luminous. Blaine knelt, his knees and calves pressed against tiny sharp shards of stone, and let the morning press against his skin like his husband’s embrace.

In the dream, Blaine remembered: Sebastian let their fingers brush against each other as they walked, step by steady step, deeper into the water. The sun was swelteringly bright in the sky, Sebastian’s hand was warm even in the summer heat. Blaine had reached out, let his fingers brush against the back of Sebastian’s palm, and Sebastian had turned, a question in the cant of his head.

Blaine had stepped forward, as the tides ebbed, and Sebastian had met him as the tides rushed forward again, catching Blaine as the ocean swept the sand away under their feet.

“Hey,” Sebastian had murmured, and Blaine had stepped closer, anchoring them against the press of the water and the eroding shore. “What brought this on?”

Blaine shook his head, words too hard to say. He breathed in, salt from the sea, and exhaled, as if he could convey all of the sureties of the world in one long breath.

Sebastian pressed his jaw into Blaine’s hair, and Blaine let go.

 

* * *

 

Blaine went back to Dalton on Wednesday.

Tala had excused herself, leaving the Smythe home for Blaine’s childhood home. She promised to stay for another week, just to make sure Blaine was fine. Albert had already departed to his apartment in Columbus, but not before ordering Blaine to text him before Blaine decided to make any rash decisions.

Alexander Smythe had said nothing.

“Your immune system’s timing is impeccable,” Nick said, clapping him on the shoulder amiably as they shuffled out of their last class of the day and towards the senior commons. “Catching a cold right before auditions?”

Blaine blinked.

Jeff joined them, still shuffling his notes into his bag. “I’m not sure how we got auditions postponed for everybody just because Blaine was sick.”

Thad, with his uncannily similar class schedule, rolled his eyes, falling in step with them from where he was waiting in the hallway. “It’s the Blaine Smythe effect. Everybody still feels bad about betting on your love life.”

“What,” Blaine blurted, adjusting his bag.

“What?” Nick echoed.

Jeff nodded sagely. “That makes sense,” he said. “We did feel pretty bad about it.”

Thad glared at Blaine, as if he had asked for the Warblers to bet on his relationship with Sebastian all of last year. “I was the only freshman who bet correctly, too.” Or maybe he was just upset that he hadn’t won money.

“I don’t know if that’s a point in your favor or against you,” Nick argued. “Blaine pretty much all but said that he wanted to marry for love.”

“But he didn’t,” Thad argued right back.

“I’m right here,” Blaine managed, weakly.

“And Blaine’s speech was pretty effective in guilting all of the upperclassmen,” Jeff continued, ignoring Nick and Thad’s familiar bickering.

“I wasn’t _guilting_ you guys.”

“So really, everybody who bet on true love _actually_ knew Blaine best,” Nick continued.

“Except for the fact that he married his husband out of filial duty,” Thad retorted.

“So it’s really no surprise,” Jeff drawled, ignoring Nick and Thad, “that auditions got postponed.”

“I am _right here_ ,” Blaine snapped, striding forward to plant himself between them and the doorway to the senior commons. “You can at least talk to me when I’m right in front of you.”

They blinked back at him.

Blaine took a deep breath.

“What’s going—oh, Blaine,” Trent said, sticking his head out the door. “Welcome back. Are you feeling better?”

He turned. “ _Thank_ you,” he said, perhaps too empathetically given Trent’s bewildered expression. He ignored it to stride into the senior commons with his head held high. “I am.”

He ignored Nick whispering, “Pretty flouncy.”

“Guess he’s mad,” Jeff whispered back.

Blaine shook his head. About half of the Warblers had arrived and were chatting among themselves. A handful looked unfamiliar—most likely freshmen that had auditioned two days ago and gotten in. Jason in his music theory class was also there, chatting with some of the upperclassmen basses as he demonstrated a beatbox beat. He looked up and waved. Blaine waved back.

“Welcome back,” Wes said, luckily looking more sympathetic than annoyed. “Have you recovered from your cold?”

Blaine nodded slowly. He wondered if he could convey, “Could we talk in private?” with only his eyebrows.

Wes stared back. “Sure,” he finally said. “After rehearsal.”

David turned. “What?”

Wes waved a hand. “Later,” he said. He scanned the room with a critical eye; everybody must have arrived, because he settled in his seat. “Let’s get started.”

Blaine, after assuring all of the newly inducted freshmen that he was not contagious, and that it was great to meet them and that he was confident that they were going to go to Nationals together, meandered his way through the crowd to where Wes was chatting with David and Thad.

“Hey,” Blaine said, aiming for casual.

“Blaine!” David clapped him affectionately on the shoulder. “Feeling better?”

He nodded.

“Great. Because let me tell you, you’re a shoe-in for a solo.”

Thad rolled his eyes. “We aren’t supposed to have favorites.”

“Blaine is everybody’s favorite.” David chortled. “Have you heard his voice?”

_You sing like a dream._

Blaine shook his head, blinking rapidly. “Uh,” he said. “Thanks for moving the audition.”

“It’s no problem,” Wes said. “I forgot you had mentioned it over the summer.”

Blaine grimaced.

Thad echoed, “Over the summer?”

Wes glanced at Blaine; he shrugged back, and admitted, “Sebastian died in September.”

David said, softly, “Oh.”

“Monday was the one-year anniversary.” Blaine shrugged, again. It wasn’t a secret, especially not to David and Thad, who had both placed bets last year. The new freshmen probably didn’t know about Sebastian, and Blaine hoped that they would hear about it from him and not from a new Warbler Betting Pool.

“Condolences,” Thad offered. David echoed him.

Wes said, “Blaine asked me over the summer to make sure auditions didn’t interfere with the date. I forgot. Good thing he caught that cold.” He flipped through his notepad, made a note, and said, “Let’s go. Coffee, Blaine?”

Blaine stared down at his coffee—decaf, given the time of the day—and said, “I didn’t have a cold.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

Wes eyed him skeptically. “Who do you think told everybody that you had a cold?”

Blaine hesitated. “Sebastian’s father?”

Wes rolled his eyes. “Do you really think that a cold would be enough to justify you missing two days of school?”

Blaine shrugged. He hadn’t thought about it, grateful that his friends weren’t asking questions and the teachers had done little more than to keep him behind after class to go over make-up quiz dates.

“Did you have a good time with Sebastian?” Wes asked, stirring his own coffee.

Blaine looked away.

Wes dropped the stick. “Blaine?”

“Sebastian’s missing,” he muttered. He said, “He hasn’t visited me in over a month.”

“Did something happen?”

“No.” Blaine traced the corrugated carboard sleeve on the coffee cup. “I don’t know.”

“Then,” Wes said, “on Monday…”

On Monday, Blaine was waking up from his attempt into the realm of the dead. He had slept through an entire weekend, his breathing so faint and his pulse so slow that Albert had gone to Sebastian’s father and admitted their plan to send Blaine into the realm of the dead in search of Sebastian’s missing soul. Alexander Smythe had spent Monday morning at the cemetery, kneeling before a tombstone in pressed trousers for so long that when he stood, the fabric at the knees were stretched and stained with ashes and dust.

Blaine had almost—

“I was in the realm of the dead.”

“Blaine.” He jerked in his seat.

“Tala and Albert—they’re my family mediums—they said there was a way to send my soul to the realm of the dead.” He ran his finger along the circumference of the cup, tracing the top of the cardboard sleeve. “So I asked them to do it.”

Wes slumped. “Blaine,” he murmured.

“I didn’t find Sebastian,” Blaine continued. “I found his aunt. She’s been dead for years. She said that nobody knows where he is. I woke up and it was Monday.”

Wes leaned back in his seat, contemplating the table, the to-go cups of coffee, the rustle of trees outside the window of the on-campus coffee corner. For many minutes, they sat there in silence, letting their coffee grow cold.

“Would you go back?” Wes asked.

Blaine stilled, the edge of the cardboard digging into the callouses on his fingertips.

His gaze was steady; whatever thoughts Wes had previously held, he had sorted through them, filed them appropriately, and laid out his future actions accordingly. Blaine had always found that comforting about the senior. There was something about Wes’ presence that make the disorganized puzzle of his thoughts slot into their proper place.

“Yes,” Blaine decided. “I would.”

 

* * *

 

Blaine got a competition solo.

 

* * *

 

“Welcome back.”

Blaine opened his eyes to the Smythe home, heart pounding painfully against his ribs. He was lying in Sebastian’s bed, the room unchanged from two weeks ago. He turned.

Linda Smythe stared back at him.

Blaine swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.

“It’s been a while,” she said. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

He sat up, the blankets pooling around his legs. Linda Smythe sat at the edge of the bed, kicking her ankles cheerfully underneath her skirt. This time, it was patterned with sunflowers, the print bright and bold against the dark woods of Sebastian’s room.

He had been in his dorm; ghost month had ended, and Blaine had resigned himself to remaining at Dalton indefinitely. Tala and Albert had both refused to contemplate sending him back to the realm of the dead. Tala had flown back to the Philippines two days ago, and Albert had responded to Blaine’s few tentative texts with polite rebuffs. He had closed his eyes in his narrow dormitory bed, the lingering agarwood thick in the air, and then—

“How did I get here?” Blaine croaked.

She shrugged.

Blaine swung his legs out of the bed, peering closely at the bookshelves. It looked like Sebastian’s room, the books stacked tightly against each other and then layered on top. Blaine absently opened a desk drawer and then blinked.

He turned back to the bookshelf.

“Looking for something?”

“This isn’t Sebastian’s room,” Blaine said. He rifled through another drawer, paper, pens, a graphing calculator that Blaine had taken to Dalton in August. “This is…”

This was Sebastian’s room before Blaine had moved in.

Linda said, “It’s Sebastian’s room.”

The closet was full of Sebastian’s clothes, the same ones that he had spent the summer boxing up and storing in the attic. The shelves were full of Sebastian’s books. The drawers filled with Sebastian’s school supplies. Blaine whispered, “Where’s my stuff?”

Linda kicked her feet, one house slipper sliding off to land on the hardwood floor with a quiet plop. “Never burned any copies of it.” She shrugged. “So why would it be here?”

Blaine looked around. “This isn’t a dream.”

“Nope.” She popped the last syllable with cheer.

He looked down at the sweatpants and old T-shirt that he was wearing; the same clothes he had worn to bed. “I didn’t burn this.”

She shrugged. “Do I look like a medium?”

Blaine frowned again, turning slowly to take in Sebastian’s room. The door to the hallway was shut. The windows were covered with the blinds closed and the curtains drawn over them. He could stay here in Sebastian’s room, curled in Sebastian's bed, reading Sebastian’s books, until he woke up.

He stood, perfectly still, until his breathing evened out.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He turned to look at Linda Smythe.

It was safe, in here. The windows and curtains were closed, and the air was quiet and still. The stories had hungry spirits roaming the realm of the dead, but in here, it was just Blaine and Linda and the ashes of Sebastian’s life.

Blaine opened the door to the hallway. Outside, the rest of the house lingered, quiet and empty, dark shadows licking at the threshold.

“Is Sebastian out there?”

She shrugged. “He’s not in this room.”

He stared out the door, into the shadows and the house, and beyond that, into the realm of the dead.

“I came to find Sebastian,” Blaine said.

Linda said, “Then go find him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/eb78tvudt54f9af/btwa_chapter2.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/169587292131/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew-chapter-2)


	3. Chapter 3

Blaine had never been particularly fond of Halloween. Oh, he liked the costumes and the way it felt to stop being Blaine Anderson for somebody else: a monster in the night, a knight rescuing a prince, a prince climbing a tower, but he had never cared for the rest of it. He burned incense and paper money during ghost month, and once that had ended he prayed to his ancestors and let the spirits rest. Halloween had always seemed an unnecessary extra tacked onto the end.

He didn’t even have a sweet enough tooth to appreciate the candy.

September, and then October, slid by with a whirl of tests and Warbler rehearsals. A group of freshmen persuaded Francis (bass, senior) to drive them into the Westerville suburbs for trick-or-treating. Blaine had stayed in the dorms, working on his AP Chemistry lab report with Nick and Jeff. Thad showed up halfway through, laptop in hand, to pick Jeff’s brain.

He occasionally spoke with Wes, who was spending the majority of his free time applying for almost every single Ivy League—and then a few other colleges just in case. He spent his time with his classmates, with the other Warblers, and before the shrine in his room.

He didn’t dream.

The days passed, one by one, until he was flipping his calendar to November. “One year,” he said to the coffee still steaming on the cabinet. “It’s been almost a year, Husband.”

Sebastian still didn’t appear.

 

* * *

 

On the eighth, Sebastian’s father took him out to dinner in Columbus. They ate in silence; the food was good, the steak perfectly cooked, the potatoes well-seasoned. Blaine ordered a side-salad with a vinaigrette that made his mouth water just to remember it. It would have been pleasant meal, if Blaine enjoyed silence.

Finally, he asked Blaine how his classes were going.

“Fine,” Blaine said.

He placed his cutlery down. “You sing, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

Blaine blinked.

“Sebastian,” he said, very slowly, “did as well.”

Blaine inhaled, shortly.

“He was good at it,” he said, “I believe.”

Sebastian, in all of their shared dreams, had never sung. He had never danced. Even when Blaine had performed his three audition options, Sebastian had done little more but to smile appreciatively and clap in time with the beat.

_You sing like a dream, and I never want to wake up._

Blaine whispered into his plate, “I wish I could have heard him sing.” He swallowed. “And dance.”

Sebastian’s father cleared his throat. Blaine looked up to see him looking out the window. “When are you performing?”

“Sectionals is at the beginning of December,” he said, on autopilot. “We’re performing in Western Ohio. You can buy tickets online.”

“Send me the date,” he said, folding his napkin. “I’ll check my schedule.”

Blaine blurted, “You want to go?”

He cleared his throat again. “You’re my son-in-law.”

 

* * *

 

“Stay after class, Mr. Smythe.”

Halfway out of the classroom, Blaine preemptively grimaced.

“Want us to wait?” Jeff asked.

“We’ve got a performance now,” Nick pointed out, shoving his books into his bag; Thad was already halfway down the hallway. He nudged Jeff out the door with a shoulder. “Wes will murder us if all of us are late.”

“I know. Go ahead. Tell Wes that I’ll be there right away.” He took a moment to actually put his binder back into his bag, trying to calculate the fastest route to the senior commons. Maybe if he ran—

Mr. Ross said, “I won’t keep you long.” He was erasing the whiteboard with long sweeps. “I just wanted to talk to you about the upcoming lab on Thursday.”

Blaine shuddered.

He received a wry grin back. “You’ve been very meticulous, Mr. Smythe, but Thursday’s lab calls for a bit more speed than you usually work at.I wanted to impress on you to have all of your notebook prepared before you come in, and to work a bit faster than your usual pace, because it’s one of the longer ones. Can’t have our soloist failing chemistry, can we?”

Blaine grimaced.

“That’s it.” He nodded. “Good luck on your performance. I’m sure I’ll hear all about it from the freshmen tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Blaine blurted, grabbing his bag and rushing out of the room.

It wasn’t their first performance of the year, but it was Blaine’s first one as a soloist. He had been practicing with the group and also during his independent music study hours, but it didn’t stop the nervous shudder that ran up his spine as he joined the other students in the hallway and down the stairwell.

“Excuse me.”

Instinct made Blaine turn around. Rational thought told him that Thad was going to murder him if he was late. (Wes would help. David would bury his corpse.)

At least he would be reunited with his husband—if his husband deigned to show up again.

“Um, hi,” the boy was saying. “Can I ask you a question, I’m new here.”

Blaine blinked. New student in November, arriving after classes, _not in a uniform_. They had made it to Nationals last year. Alarm bells started ringing in his head.

“My name’s Blaine,” he said, offering his hand.

“Kurt,” the new kid who was not wearing a uniform said. “So, what exactly is going on?”

“The Warblers.” Blaine laughed. “Every now and then they throw an impromptu performance in the senior commons. It tends to shut the school down for a while.” He couldn’t help the smug grin. And he had gotten a solo this year.

“So, wait, the glee club here is kind of cool?”

Well, that was interesting. Blaine was pretty sure that the Warblers were mentioned on every single new-student pamphlet that Dalton Academy had ever printed, especially since they made nationals the year before. In fact, he was pretty sure he could quote one from memory. “The Warblers are like rock stars.” He grinned at the shell-shocked expression. No way this kid had ever seen any of the orientation materials that got handed to any student. “Come on. I know a shortcut.”

Maybe finding a spy would mitigate his inevitable death when he showed up late. Halfway down the hall, he realized that he was taking a spy to one of their first performances of the year. He was dragging a spy to his _first performance with a solo_.

Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

He was tempted to reverse time and change trajectory, even as he walked into a full room with a spy in tow. Nick caught his eye and raised an eyebrow. He put on his best smile in return, took a short breath to center himself, and tried to avoid thinking of his impending death by Warbler council.

If he was lucky, David would keep Wes at bay long enough for him to make his apologies. If he groveled, Wes might keep him alive until after Sectionals.

Thad was going to have his head on a pike no matter what.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said to the spy—Kurt, he had said his name was. Blaine handed his bag over, straightened his blazer, and stepped in front of the formation.

 _You sing like a dream_ , Sebastian’s voice whispered in his ear.

Blaine took a deep breath.

“ _You_ make me feel like a teenage dream.”

 

* * *

 

That night, Wes was waiting for him at the dorm shrine, arms crossed over his chest, stare vaguely disapproving.

“He would have found his way sooner or later,” Blaine started.

“That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about,” he interrupted. He had a metal pot by his foot, along with a full canvas bag. “You were out, yesterday.”

Blaine swallowed. “I had dinner with Sebastian’s father.”

Wes said, very gently, “It wasn’t a judgment.”

Blaine shrugged back. Wes had a way of stripping him down, flaying him open and leaving nothing behind. Less than an hour after seeing Kurt out—the memory of his first freshman year in St. Ivers lingering in his bones—Blaine felt familiar defensiveness rise up in a wave of unexpected resentment.

“I would have offered earlier, but I’ve been busy.” He nudged the red metal pot with the toe of his loafers. “Yesterday was your anniversary, wasn’t it?”

He swallowed, the resentment fading rapidly. “Yeah.”

“I’ve got incense and paper money in there.”

Blaine nodded.

“We can wait until the weekend, if you’d like. The other boys wouldn’t mind joining in.”

He shook his head. “Let’s go,” he said, bending down to pick up the bag. There was a fresh box of incense, paper money still wrapped in plastic, and a stack of miscellaneous goods printed on the same thin paper. He muttered, “How much did this cost you?”

Wes shrugged back, picking up the pot as they headed down the hallway into the vast courtyard. “What’s money?”

The sun had set, and the lights cast long shadows as Wes found an empty patch of cobblestone and lit a flame. The few students still outside cast curious glances, but two Warblers—one of them Wes—making offerings to the dead was a common enough sight that Blaine and Wes were left undisturbed.

Blaine cast a handful of paper money into the flame.

Wes pulled the shrink-wrap from the box of incense. It rustled over the crackle of the fire.

“He’s being bullied.”

“Kurt?”

Blaine nodded. He knew his thoughts should be on his husband, but each smoke-filled breath ached in a familiar pattern—on the right side: the fifth, sixth, and seventh ribs, on the left side: the fourth, seventh, and eighth ribs.

Wes hummed.

“I told him to confront his attackers.”

“Attackers?”

“Bullies,” Blaine corrected, letting another handful drip from his fingertips into the flame. Who could have known that bones could heal so quickly. Who could have known that bones could heal so slowly.

“Has he reported it?”

Blaine shrugged. “He says nobody seems to care.”

Wes said, “You did what you could.”

Blaine shrugged again. Wes lit a stick of incense and handed it over. He held it, carefully, letting the familiar smell of agarwood and ash lull him into solace. “I didn’t tell him about Sebastian.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I haven’t heard from him in months,” Blaine explained; he bowed over the smoke, and Wes took it from his numb fingertips. “I thought that maybe last night he would have come back.”

“Did he?”

“No.”

He reached into the bag, riffled through the photos of cars, houses, clothes and riches printed on flimsy paper. He pulled out a sheet with a car on it, a little red thing, logo emblazoned boldly. He crumpled it into a ball and then smoothed it out, over and over.

“I don’t know where he is,” he said. “I don’t know where he went.”

“Have you gone back to the realm of the dead?”

“No.”

But he remembered snatches of dreams: sunlight that didn’t warm his skin; wind that kissed his cheeks but left his lungs empty; brambles that grew unhampered, creeping up stone walls and wooden doors, sinking thorns into the mortar and ripping gouges into the windows. Linda Smythe stood before him, always out of reach, the thorns digging into her knees as vines rooted her to the ground, and Blaine remained helpless even as his knee ached in sympathy.

He shook his head. “I don’t know how.”

Wes rolled the incense between his thumb and forefinger.

He hurled the paper into the pot, a crumpled thing, the car distorted from where the sweat of his skin had rubbed against the ink. Who knew what it would be when it made it into the realm of the dead? Would it remember its form, or would the crumpled paper and smeared ink render it void?

“How did you go there before?”

Blaine shrugged. Albert had arranged it, and Tala had performed the rituals. He had seated himself on the couch and woken up three days later supine.

“Do you want to go back?” Wes asked.

He looked down at the papers in his hand. A DSLR camera, rendered in exquisite detail; a top of the line laptop; three different types of smartphones. Every luxury his husband could want, printed onto flimsy paper. He had lit incense, burned money, offered the freshest fruits of the season. He had invited his husband into his dreams and asked him to stay.

He had married a boy he had never met.

“I don’t know what I did,” Blaine murmured. “I don’t know why he’s stopped visiting.”

“You did what you could,” Wes said, again.

“Maybe.” He threw the papers into the fire. “Maybe not.”

 

* * *

 

His socked feet were almost soundless as he padded through the familiar hallways and unfamiliar rooms. The kitchen was empty, a single bowl filled with fruit on the granite countertops, the dark walnut cabinets empty of plates or cutlery.

“What are you doing?”

Blaine’s fingers tightened on the wood.

Linda Smythe, perched on the countertop, cocked her head.

He swallowed, and he closed the cabinet. The sound of it shutting resonated in his ears, low and sonorous. “I’m going to find Sebastian,” he said.

She looked at the cabinet, and back at him, askance.

He opened the cabinet, again, a hatchet in the very back. He closed it, and the slam echoed in his ears. He opened a drawer instead, empty except for a flashlight, candles, and matches. Another drawer yielded loose change, and another contained cellphones stacked one on top of each other. One held paper flowers crammed so densely that when Blaine pushed down with a finger, it didn’t sink at all. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Are you following me?”

“This is my house,” she said.

He opened the kitchen door, and darkness lingered where the dining room should be. He stood, rooted, even as his fingers pulled the door closed again, the heavy oak door between him and the darkness.

He said, “Where’s the dining room?”

She shrugged, kicking her bare feet beneath her skirt. “Through that door,” she said.

“There’s nothing there.”

“It’s there,” she said, placidly. “This is my house, after all.”

He swallowed, breath catching in his chest as he opened the door again. Shadows crept in the corners of the dining room, the table anchoring the room. Blaine had sat there, days ago, two seats down from Sebastian’s father, the two of them quiet in the wake of Blaine’s one year anniversary.

“It wasn’t there before,” Blaine said.

Linda Smythe said, very quietly, “This is my house. The house they burnt for me.”

Blaine froze, his hand on the doorframe, his feet before the threshold. The dining room loomed, the table that sat ten was empty, cleared of the detritus that accompanied Alexander Smythe’s meals.

“This is your house,” Blaine echoed. He crept forward, his fingers hooking on the frame as he stepped from kitchen to empty dining room. Behind him, there was a quiet thump as Linda Smythe slid from the countertops to join him.

On the wall, an unfamiliar painting hung—a landscape, of trees and a tower in the background, children playing in the foreground. He had never seen it before, despite the meals he had eaten with Sebastian’s father.

He said, “Does Sebastian have a house?”

She stared, very soberly back. “Did you burn one for him?”

Every year, the living Smythes burned offerings—every anniversary, every tomb-sweeping day, every ghost month—the deceased no doubt had dozens upon dozens of houses, all the same, packed against each other: window-to-window, door-to-door. A new house for every ancestor, and more besides. Blaine had burned a dozen houses for Sebastian, already. Sebastian’s father no doubt had burned his own dozen for his son.

The Smythes wanted for nothing, living or dead.

“How do I get to Sebastian’s house?” Blaine asked.

She offered her small hand. Blaine took it, but she didn’t lead him anywhere. Instead, they stood in the dining hall before the head of the table, her child’s hand engulfed in his. Finally, she tugged, and Blaine followed her through empty rooms and quiet hallways until they stood before Sebastian’s room.

“He’s not here,” Blaine said, remembering the empty room. He glanced around at the quiet hallway. “I need to. I need to go outside.”

She frowned at him. “Then go outside,” she said.

He stumbled down the hallway, down the staircase and to the foyer where the front door loomed, the oak stained dark. He inhaled, sharply, his breath catching in his throat, and when he reached for the handle his hand was very steady.

Behind him, Linda waiting silently.

He turned the cold brass handle and—

Instead of the street, he looked into a hallway the mirror image of the one he was standing in.

He turned around, but there was nobody behind him. Linda Smythe had vanished, as if she had never been here.

His breath hitched in his chest.

He stepped forward, one careful step after another, crossing over the threshold from the Smythe family home into the Smythe family home. The walls were the same dark wood paneling, the floor lined with the same plush rug. It was, to all appearances, identical to the house he had left.

 

* * *

 

Blaine blinked awake.

He let the chatter wash over him during breakfast, blinking the dream away as he chewed and swallowed methodically. There were autumn apples, and he picked over the offerings before finding two blushed with the cooling air. He poured a cup of coffee and made his way back to his dorm room.

Thad was leaning against his door.

Blaine stopped dead, fingers tightening on the warm coffee.

“Wes said I wasn’t allowed to complain about you bringing a spy,” he said, sounding a little sour.

“Okay. Why are you here then?”

Thad rolled his eyes, stepping to the side to let Blaine fit his key into the lock. “I’m here as your friend.”

Blaine blinked at him. “Okay?”

Thad politely lingered at the doorway as Blaine stepped out of his loafers and set the coffee and apples on the shrine. He met Blaine’s curious gaze before his eyes drifted upwards in a deliberate act of giving Blaine privacy.

Blaine smiled, lighting a stick of incense and bowing.

For months, he had wished for Sebastian to return. This morning he hesitated, thinking of houses full of identical, empty, rooms. Memory came slowly, but it lingered this time. He recalled windows opening into windows, the houses so tightly packed that he could reach out a window into another. He recalled houses parallel and perpendicular, identical in every way but their location.

 _Wait for me_ , he prayed instead. _I’ll find you, even if I have to break every wall of your house._

The smoke curled around his cheeks, a caress, a promise. He tilted his head into the warmth, an old memory of Sebastian’s palm, wide and warm, floating to the surface. Involuntarily, he smiled.

He stepped back.

Thad was still studiously eying the ceiling, as if he could find the world’s secrets hidden in the popcorn pattern. He glanced at Blaine, a frown lingering.

“So,” Blaine began, wiping his fingers on his trousers and ignoring Thad’s judgmental offer of a handkerchief. He grabbed his books for the day. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“The spy.”

“Kurt,” Blaine offered.

“Right.” Thad blinked. “Kurt. Sure.” He followed Blaine out as they walked to pre-Calculus. “What did he want?”

 _To spy on the Warblers_ caught in Blaine’s throat. To spy, to discover their weaknesses and bring it back to the school where he was shoved around and where they looked at him as if he was pond scum because he liked boys.

He said, very slowly, “He’s part of the McKinley Glee Club in Lima.”

“That’s a long way to come to spy on a weekday,” Thad observed.

He shrugged. “I guess they’re dedicated to winning Sectionals.”

Thad eyed him. “Should we return the favor?”

“What?”

“They sent a spy. We could send one back.”

“Me,” Blaine said flatly. “You want to send me to McKinley.”

“Only if you want to go,” Thad said, virtuously. “McKinley’s Glee club hasn’t done anything of note, though they did win their sectionals last year.” At Blaine’s disbelieving look, he added, “I’m in charge of researching this year’s competition.”

“Wes too busy with college apps?”

Thad snorted. “Ha ha,” he drawled back. “I’ll have you know that this is an important duty that David has entrusted to me in light of my meticulous nature and drive.”

“So… David’s studying for SATs?”

“Exactly.”

Blaine grinned fondly.

“It’s still an important duty,” he said petulantly.

“Would we change anything if we knew their setlist?”

“Probably not,” Thad admitted. “We’ve committed to what we’ve got already, though none of us are opposed to making changes. Acapella isn’t something you can do off-the-cuff.”

Blaine raised an eyebrow.

“Rumor has it,” Thad confided, “that last year, the McKinley Glee Club decided on their setlist ten minutes before they went on stage.”

“And they won Sectionals?”

“They were going up against a school for the deaf and Jane Addams Academy—some school for female delinquents.”

“Oh.” He bit his lip. “That’s still impressive, I guess.”

Thad shrugged. “They had an easy draw.” They turned a corner into a familiar crowd milling outside their classroom. Nick waved from where he and Jeff were standing off to the side; Jeff had his head bowed and was diligently checking his homework answers in the back of the book as Nick held it up for him. “Still, I suppose it takes some skill to put together a setlist in ten minutes.”

“Who put together a setlist in ten minutes?” Nick asked.

“The McKinley Glee Club at their Sectionals last year.”

Jeff looked up from his homework. “Why do we care?”

“We’re going up against them in less than a month!” Thad huffed. “Don’t any of you listen to the announcements?”

“Only when Wes makes them,” Nick admitted.

“Not even David?” Blaine asked, curiously.

Jeff shook his head, “Nah,” he said, flipping a page in his homework and then flipping a page in the textbook Nick was still holding up; Nick obligingly adjusted his grip to accommodate for the changed page. “He’s the fun one.”

“Wes is scary,” Thad agreed. “Wait, none of you listen to me?”

Nick shook his head. “Nope,” Jeff muttered, marking another answer correct.

“Don’t look at me,” Blaine protested when Thad turned to glare at him. “I’m very respectful of authority. I thought we established that last year.”

“I can’t believe I bet wrong,” Nick lamented.

“ _I_ can’t believe I didn’t win anything for betting right,” Thad muttered back.

“I can’t believe that all of you participated in a betting pool on my relationship with my husband,” Blaine said loudly. “My deceased husband,” he added. “Have you all no shame?”

“You have to admit it came out of the blue,” Jeff pointed out, capping his pen and taking the book back from Nick. “One day you were Blaine Anderson, the next you were Blaine Smythe and _married_.”

“I _had_ been betrothed since I was thirteen.”

“So have I,” Thad pointed out. “Well, fourteen. Beginning of last year.”

“Really?” Nick perked up, groping for his phone in his back pocket. “Is it a love match—”

“Nick,” Blaine interrupted loudly. “I thought we had all learned a lesson about betting on our friends’ significant others.”

“I wasn’t going to _bet_ on it,” Nick protested, as the doors opened and they began filing in. “Just asking some friendly questions.”

“I can see you reaching for your phone,” Blaine pointed out.

“Friendly questions!” Nick exclaimed, waving his free hand. “From a friend! To another friend!”

Jeff met Blaine’s eyes wryly. “Michael left him all of his old betting spreadsheets when he graduated. Nick’s been dying to set up a new pool since July.”

“I’m surprised he waited this long,” Thad muttered.

“Just leave me out of it.” Blaine shook his head, sliding into his seat and pulling out his notebook.

“But you’ve got the most exciting life,” Nick protested, poking him in the neck with a pencil as he leaned over his own desk. “Com’on, spill. What’s with you and that spy yesterday?”

“I ran into him on the stairwell,” Blaine repeated obligingly. “Stop poking me.”

“You were _holding hands_ ,” Nick emphasized with another prod.

“I was holding his wrist. I had to run otherwise I’d be late. I didn’t want him to get lost in the halls. Now seriously, stop poking me, Nick.”

“I don’t believe that,” Nick exclaimed dramatically, rising from his seat. “Are you cheating on your husband?”

“His dead husband?” Thad raised an eyebrow. “The one he made a commitment to marry and then actually married? Out of commitment?”

Blaine groaned into his hands.

Jeff patted Blaine on the shoulder.

Nick pointed dramatically. “Alas, the pleasures of the flesh—”

“If you’re finished, Mr. Duval?” Mr. Tao interrupted from the front of the classroom. “Don’t make me separate you boys.”

“No, sir,” Thad offered.

Nick sat sheepishly down.

“Good. Now, let’s begin. Mr. Smythe, if you’re finished trying to suffocate yourself, you can collect the homework.”

 

* * *

 

The problem with having French as the last class of the day was that it was extraordinarily hard to switch to a new language after hours of learning in English. It always took Blaine at least ten of the eighty minutes to remind himself that he was no longer learning in English, but instead immersing himself in French.

The advantage was that it was Freshman French, and Blaine was mercifully separated from the joint destructive tendencies of a snooping Nick and a scorned Thad.

He took advantage of the privacy as he shuffled out of class to flip through the messages in his phone. He absently replied to the latest Warbler thread—Thad seemed a little aggravated—and was scrolling through the handful of class announcements when he saw the email from Tala.

 _Blaine_ , it read, _I have been thinking of your husband._

Blaine blinked, pausing in the middle of the hallway.

Rehearsal was starting in a few minutes; Blaine was still a good five minute walk away from the senior commons. Wes had texted him earlier that day reminding him that they were going to rehearse _Soul Sister_ first.

He hesitated before ducking into an alcove to read the message.

_I contacted Albert Smythe about whether or not he’s heard anything from any of the other Smythe relatives. All of them agree that Sebastian has been missing for a long time, but he had never been in close contact with any of them previously. He’s been reaching out to the Smythe ancestors, and I’ve been asking any of our ancestors if they are aware of any similar circumstances. This much silence is unprecedented._

_Albert and I are still in contact. Have courage, Blaine._

_Love,  
Tala._

He realized distantly that his hand was trembling around the phone. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

_Have courage._

He exhaled, slowly. Courage for what? To keep living, to keep dreaming, waiting for another chance to slip into the realm of the dead? To spend another day, another week, another month living while knowing that Sebastian was dead and gone? To keep singing, to keep walking, to keep breathing—

He took another deep breath. Courage. He could work with that. He slid his phone into his pocket, and then, slowly, slipped it out again.

 _Courage_ , he typed to Kurt.

He dropped the phone into his pocket and went to rehearsal.

 

* * *

 

“Got a minute?” Wes asked as rehearsal finished. Wes had been a particularly hard taskmaster this afternoon, making the baritones sing their part over and over until he was satisfied. He hadn’t stopped there, turning to the tenors next and drilling them for what seemed like hours. Blaine considered himself lucky to have nabbed the lead vocals, as it made him mostly exempt from Wes’ draconian ear.

Blaine glanced around. “Sure,” he said, shouldering his bag. “Is this about my singing—”

“It’s about Kurt.”

Blaine inhaled sharply.

Wes paused, and then, after the last of the Warblers had filtered out, asked, “How are you doing?”

His breath caught in his throat.

How was Blaine doing?

He said, “I’m fine. Kurt’s the one being hurt.”

Calmly, Wes said, “Alright. As long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Blaine insisted. “I’m fine.”

“I’m here if you need anything,” Wes said.

“I’m fine.”

“I know.”

“I’m fine.”

“Blaine,” Wes said. His hand was warm and steady against his shaking shoulder. “I know.”

Blaine nodded. “I have to study,” he muttered.

“Same.” He grabbed his own bag, slinging it on his shoulder. “Those college applications wait for no one.” He squeezed Blaine’s shoulder, and said, “You have my phone number if you need anything.”

Blaine nodded. “I’m fine,” he said, quietly, again.

 

* * *

 

_Can we talk?  
He kissed me._

Blaine inhaled, sharply enough that his chest tightened with the sudden movement. He could remember his words from yesterday in exquisite detail.

_Confront him. Call him out._

He closed his eyes. Tomorrow, he wanted to say. Let’s talk tomorrow. He had homework, exams, rehearsals, _Sebastian_.

But they had been his words.

 _I’ll meet you at your school tomorrow morning_ , he texted back. _I’ll talk to him for you_.

_Confront him. Call him out._

He swallowed, curled an arm around himself, and let himself slip, one choking gasp after another, into the familiar terror of a dream without Sebastian. He slipped from room to room; he found a pair of garden sheers and his fingers wrapped around the blades. He reached underneath a bed and found a heavy wooden bat. He hefted it without conscious thought.

It was silent was he walked, his heart slowly settling in time with the ticking of a hundred thousand identical clocks. His body felt out of his control as he drifted like sea foam over hardwood floors and up stairs, every cell moving towards an inexorable conclusion.

He found himself in Sebastian’s room, one of many. He always found himself back here, the shelves familiar, the space between the desk and the bed, the space between the door and the dresser, the space between the window and the closet well mapped in his memory. In all his attempts to leave the building, he found himself walking until he was here again, in the room that he had become anchored in.

He turned and tried the door to the hallway.

The handle was cold and still under his hand. He let it go, hand falling limp to the side as he meandered, touching the sharp corners of the desk, leaning against the walls, traveling in circles that were hampered by the heavy furniture in the way.

He opened the closet.

In the darkness, a monster emerged. Grotesque and monstrous, it stared at him as its mouth twisted into a familiar sneer. It lunged forward—

He swung. The bones of the rib cage shattered under the heavy bat in his hands, and the sound drove him back into his body, the monster lurching back. He swung, again and again, until it crumbled, and he saw it was nothing more than a heap of white-bleached bones.

Blaine stared at the skeleton. His hands were steady where they clasped around the bat. There was a familiar terror in the back of his throat as he woke.

His heart pattered against the solid bones of his ribs. He struggled to take slow, steadying breaths. Then, he slipped out from under the covers, cracking open the window to let in the chill of the November morning. Outside, the sky was graying with pre-dawn light. He lit incense, pressing his cheek into a hand as if it were Sebastian’s hand. He knelt before the thin spark for a long time, until his fingers no longer trembled where they rested against his closed eyes.

Then he stood and got dressed.

 

* * *

 

“I’m going to McKinley.”

Wes looked at him—gray slacks, white dress shirt, tie pulled in tight and blazer like armor around his shoulders. He looked and said, “Do you want me to drive you?”

“It’s a Thursday,” Blaine said.

Wes shrugged. “I drove you a lot last year.”

“Not on a weekday morning.”

Wes handed him a paper cup of coffee. “For you,” he said. He then handed him another. “This one’s for your husband.”

Blaine’s breath caught in his throat.

“I’ll tell the teachers you aren’t feeling well,” Wes said, using his now free hands to type an email on his phone. “And I’ll tell Thad you’re spying on the competition so he doesn’t panic that our soloist has laryngitis.”

Blaine smiled weakly.

“Hey. You look like you’re walking to your execution.” Wes tapped him on the shoulder with his phone. “Are you a Warbler or not?”

Blaine inhaled sharply, rolling his shoulders back, the Dalton blazer a familiar comfort. He tried again, and this time when he smiled he thought he might be able to start believing it.

 

* * *

 

It was a two hour drive from Westerville to Lima without traffic. Blaine took it in three, letting his car idle behind the tangle of commuters. It was almost 11 when he finally made it to Lima, letting his phone navigate him to the McKinley High School parking lot.

He sat, the ignition turned off, for several long minutes, breathing through his nose.

Finally, he adjusted his blazer and texted Kurt. _I’m here_.

Kurt said, “Thanks again for coming.”

_Confront him. Call him out._

He said, “Don’t worry about it.” He said, “Just let me do the talking.” He said, “Excuse me,” standing on the steps below David Karofsky, looking up.

David Karofsky was, indeed, very tall.

He remembered the bat, heavy in his hand as he swung it in his dream. It had fit, the wood of the handle rough enough to stay in his grip, smooth enough as if it had molded to his hand. He could swing one here, use both hands, snap ribs and knock him from his perch and send him tumbling down.

He could—

“Kurt and I would like to _talk_ to you about something,” he said, instead.

He held still as David Karofsky pushed passed him. He followed as Karofsky walked away. He stumbled backwards as Karofsky rushed at him, pushed him against the fence, fisted his hands in the blazer.

Blaine held his hands up, staring steadily back as Karofsky turned away. He exhaled, a breath he hadn’t remembered taking, and smiled wryly, letting the familiar weight of the blazer against his chest contain his heartbeat as he turned to Kurt. “Well, he’s not coming out anytime soon,” he said, glibly.

Kurt ignored him, sitting on the stairs.

“What’s going on?” He sat next to Kurt, his knees popping from the sudden motion. “Why are you so upset?”

“Because up until yesterday,” Kurt rasped, “I had never been kissed. Or at least… one that counted.”

He inhaled, yearning aching along the cracks in his ribs.

_Sebastian._

His husband, who he would never touch with his hands except in his dreams. Sebastian, whose ghost he had married; he had forfeited things like first kisses a year ago, and hearing Kurt’s words sent a fresh ache through him.

He turned away. “Com’on,” Blaine said, standing up. “I’ll buy you lunch.”

 

* * *

 

He took off the blazer before getting back into his car, and without it, Blaine felt his shoulders pitch forward in a sudden burst of weakness. He clutched at the wheel and drove from the McKinley High School parking lot on autopilot before stopping by a coffee shop at the edge of the town. The Lima Bean, it read on the sign, and, shoulders hunched, ribs aching in memory, he struggled to muster a smile at the pun.

He sat in his car for a long time, pushing the chair back so he could curl—he could _curl_ —his legs into his chest, wrap an arm around his calves, press his unbruised cheek into his knees. He closed his eyes, struggling in familiar breathing exercises, even as he compressed his chest with his legs and arms.

His back hurt.

It was a new pain.

After a long time, he fished his phone out of his pocket. Kurt had sent him several effusive texts, and he skipped over them in favor of rereading Tala’s email.

_Have courage._

He ached for Sebastian. It was a familiar ache now, one borne from months of yearning. He missed the dreams of summer, where they laid on the sand with their fingertips touching. He missed the soft brush of Sebastian’s shirt against his cheek as they laid curled in bed, the press of Sebastian’s palm against the small of his back, around the bones in his wrist, against the curve of his thigh.

His chest burned, worse than it had been in months. Months ago, he thought he would have been fine with just dreams. He would have been fine with Sebastian catching his face in his hands, pressing a promise into his skin with his lips, waking up with the sensation lingering. It would have stayed with him all day, and he would have fallen back into bed, into Sebastian’s arms, into a dream of incandescent joy.

But now—

_Have courage, Blaine._

He drove back to Dalton in time for rehearsal. Instead, he returned to his room. It was fragrant with agarwood smoke, the incense having burned down over the day.

Blaine slept, and he didn’t dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/xocretqywrsksgi/btwa_chapter3.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/169864274706/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew-chapter-3)
> 
>  
> 
> [Read an extra scene, From the Inbox of Blaine Smythe, here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13397184/chapters/30690501)


	4. Chapter 4

That weekend, Blaine went home.

Not home to the Smythes. He called his parents instead of texting them, letting his mother ask him if he had been eating properly, letting his father brusquely ask about his classes and the Warblers. After he had updated them both, his father handed the phone to his mother.

After a long silence, she asked, “Do you want to come home this weekend?”

“Yeah. Okay.” He closed his eyes. “That’d be nice.”

He drove home after classes on Friday, idling in traffic leaving Westerville. The sun had set and night was settling in by the time he arrived home, consulting his GPS on the dash periodically. He lingered in his car for a moment, before swinging his bag of laundry over his shoulder and unlocking the door.

“Have you eaten?” his mother asked, ushering him inside.

“Not yet,” he said.

She took the laundry from him, pushing him towards the kitchen. “Good,” she said. “Your father’s about to get home. We’ll eat together.”

Dinners had always been a little silent after Cooper had left. Blaine remembered dinners before Dalton as quiet, hushed affairs, his mother too concerned, his father too gruff, Cooper’s absence a gaping wound in the family table. He had easily fallen into the rambunctious energy of the Dalton cafeteria. He had _preferred_ it.

Tonight was quiet, but Blaine felt himself unwinding with each bite he took. His mother had made some of his childhood favorites, and he let the familiar flavors of tamarind and lime wash over him. He ate, mumbling brief acknowledgements as his mother occasionally asked a question.

Finally, the food was finished. He stacked the dishes and began loading the dishwasher while his father washed the pots and pans.

His mother said, “Alexander called us.”

Blaine gripped the bowl tightly.

“He said you seemed a little quiet recently.” She busied herself with rearranging the dishes on the counter. “Your father and I thought maybe you’d like to come back for the weekend.”

“Yeah,” Blaine said into the dishwasher. “This is nice.”

His father made a vague noise of assent as he scoured the next pot.

His mother nodded briskly. “How is school?” she asked.

“It’s alright,” he said.

“And your singing?”

Blaine shrugged. “Sectionals is the first weekend of December,” he said. “Tickets are available online,” he added.

His mother nodded. His father scrubbed firmly at the pot. Blaine wiped his fingers off and closed the dishwasher.

“I’m going to go to bed,” he said. “It’s been a long drive.”

Almost a year ago, he had curled up to sleep and had been visited by his husband. Sebastian had come to him, had sat on the edge of the bed and cupped Blaine’s cheek in familiar affection. Sebastian had made no promises; separated by the thin blanket, his touch had been the only anchor as he had cast Blaine adrift and then reeled him in.

Blaine closed his eyes and let himself drift.

He remembered an old dream; Blaine was at Dalton and Sebastian was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, smirking as Blaine slowed.

“What are you doing here?” Blaine had asked, unable to help the faint smile.

“Visiting the Warblers,” he had replied. “I heard that next year’s soloist is sex on a stick.”

Blaine had shaken his head. “You don’t know that I’m going to get a solo.”

“I,” Sebastian had retorted loftily, “would hardly marry somebody mediocre, would I?”

Blaine had stepped off the bottom step, letting his body orient into Sebastian’s gravity, slipping into orbit around his husband, as his dreams always did. He had let himself lean into the solid presence of Sebastian, let Sebastian wrap an arm around his waist, tied himself closer and closer to Sebastian. He leaned in—

And stumbled into a familiar hallway.

He inhaled the familiar agarwood that accompanied all of his visits into the realm of the dead; he was dreaming now.

“Sebastian,” he called, cautiously.

There was no reply, as there never had been, only the quiet creaking of floorboards and the squeaking of a hinge.

“Linda?” he tried.

Silence.

He glanced around, recognizing the second-floor landing that led to Sebastian’s room, to Sebastian’s father’s office, to a mostly empty room filled with a perpetual layer of dust.

He turned to Sebastian’s room.

It was empty of his husband, as it always had been. Months of searching, and Sebastian had yet to appear. Blaine despaired of finding Sebastian in his own house. He made a cursory search of the room, opening drawers as if he would find his husband tucked inside a dresser.

He hesitated before the closet.

There were no monsters in the closet. It was an affection that children had. Monsters did not hide in closets in the realm of the dead anymore than they did in the world of the living.

Blaine opened the closet.

The bones lay in crumpled shards at his feet.

He slammed the door so loudly that it vibrated on its steady hinges, so loudly that he woke up in his own bed, his heart pounding just as loudly against his ribs.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, Blaine’s mother took him to get a haircut, to the bookstore where she picked over the options at the New and Recommended section, and finally to a local art fair downtown where she contemplated three wooden spoons for a solid twenty minutes.

In the afternoon, Blaine’s father took him to the park with a bag of grapes. They sat by the pond, throwing the grapes at the ducks as they floated by. Blaine tried to lead the ducks into patterns, but mostly they squabbled over the same grape until Blaine had thrown a few more into the water to distract them. His father ate every other piece he threw.

“You listen to music,” his father said, when the bag was empty.

“Yeah,” Blaine said.

His dad rummaged in a pocket, handing over a set of earbuds. Blaine crinkled the plastic. “Got them at work. I thought you might like them.”

“Thanks,” Blaine said. They looked like they would break after two uses. “I appreciate it.”

He checked his phone after they had returned home. Thad had emailed him the updated rehearsal schedule for soloists, Nick had sent him notes from half of the classes he had missed on Thursday, Jeff and Trent had sent him notes from the other half. The Warbler group chat was having a vigorous argument about censorship in music—half of the seniors were for _Fuck You_ , the other half were for _Forget You_ , and Nick seemed to be trying to set up a betting pool about it.

Kurt had sent him several texts.

He checked Kurt’s texts, more effusive thanks, brief updates on his day and a query about Blaine’s weekend, and, from early this morning, a hesitant request to hang out—this weekend, or later in the week. Lying on top of the covers, he eyed the texts thoughtfully before flipping back to the Warbler group chat.

He was composing a response on the integrity of an artist’s message, and what censorship meant for art—he was pretty proud of it too—when his mother called him down for dinner.

He hastily finished the message and sent it before going downstairs, alone.

 

* * *

 

“Are you going to work on your homework?” his mother asked him as Blaine was loading the dishwasher.

“Yeah,” he said. “I still have some.”

“I was thinking we could watch a movie,” his mother said. “Maybe a musical.”

Blaine froze.

She said, “What movie do you want to watch?”

“Anything is fine,” he said.

“Let him do his homework,” his father said, instead.

“Maybe we can watch a movie later,” Blaine muttered before retreating to his room. He let out a deep breath, slumping in his chair and closing his eyes. He sat for a long time before turning to pre-calculus, chemistry, and rest of the homework he had left for the weekend.

An hour later, his father knocked on the door.

“Dad,” he said, startled.

His father pulled a chair up to the desk. His mother had stopped offering to help Blaine on his homework in middle school. His father still offered, and Blaine always rebuffed his offers. This time, his father glanced at the homework before he said, “Alexander said that you’ve gone to the realm of the dead.”

Blaine’s pencil froze, halfway through the chemical equation he was writing.

“I didn’t tell your mother.”

He set the pencil down, but couldn’t find it in himself to turn to face his father.

“He said something about going to find Sebastian.”

Blaine inhaled sharply.

His father said, “What did you do, Blaine?”

He stared at his homework. He had a report on an experiment he didn’t perform to write. He had an essay to research for history. He had music theory assignments to finish.

Blaine said, “I went to Tala.”

“What did Tala do?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Ripped my soul out. Sent me to the realm of the dead.”

“Blaine,” he said, firmly. “This is serious.”

He said, duly, “Sebastian had stopped visiting me. Albert—the Smythe medium—said that he was missing even when he tried to make contact.” He looked up, meeting his father’s gaze. “He said that we were connected. If anybody could find Sebastian, it would be me.” He inhaled. “I married him.”

“You tried to kill yourself.”

“I didn’t.” He shook his head.

“Blaine.”

He continued to shake. “I just—loosened the hold my body has on my soul.”

“Blaine,” he said, disappointed.

Disappointed? That he had done what any husband should have done? _Disappointed_ when all Blaine had tried to do was the right thing? “He’s my husband,” he said. “I had to.”

“You’re sixteen,” his father began.

“You gave me to him!” he shouted back. He heard the chair thud, realized he had risen to his feet. “You gave me to Sebastian. He’s my husband. He _disappeared_.”

“You couldn’t have _waited_?” his father shouted back.

Waited? Waited for what? It had been months, and Sebastian still hadn’t appeared. It had been months of traversing the same house in the realm of the dead, Sebastian perpetually out of sight.

Blaine was shaking. He asked, “How long should I have waited?” He flung an arm out. “Until I died?”

“Calm down,” his father snapped.

He shook his head. “You asked me to marry him,” he snarled. “I married him. What did you expect?”

“For you to have faith.” His father rose. “For you to wait. For you to think about what it would do to us. Not to rip your soul out of your body.”

“I didn’t—”

“Blaine,” his father said, standing in the doorway. “You already almost died once.”

He stared back.

“What would your mother say if you actually died this time?”

 

* * *

 

“I was fifteen when I died,” Sebastian had said. “I was living in Paris. I had never met you, and I had no intention of meeting you.”

Blaine closed his eyes. “I don’t want to remember this.”

The problem was that he did remember. He could remember this dream in vivid detail, the way he could remember all of his dreams with Sebastian. It had been the lunar new year, less than a year ago, and he had been lying in Sebastian’s bed, sleeping in Blaine’s own childhood bedroom.

Sebastian had come to him, cupped his cheek in a hand, and called him “Husband” the way he always had—a taunt, a mockery, a reminder of the decision that Blaine had walked into.

Blaine had asked, and Sebastian had answered.

“Do you even know what these marriages entail?” he had demanded, before laying it out, all of the details that Blaine knew and tried to never think about. The pledge to chastity; the life alone with only a ghost for comfort; the child that Blaine would raise in the name of his dead husband.

Remembering this now, Blaine shook his head.

“I had a dozen options lined up for me,” Sebastian had spat, “and then there was you. A boy I had never met, living in a place I had never wanted to return to.”

“No,” Sebastian had said. “I didn’t want to marry you.”

“Shut up,” Blaine whispered, clutching at his ears. “I know what you said.”

“If you had died, I wouldn’t have wanted to marry you.”

“I know.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“I know.”

“—have married you.”

“I know!” he shouted. “I know. You think I don’t remember?” He flung an arm out, and this time instead of sweeping through the empty air above his childhood bed, it smashed against flesh, shattered the shoulder, left a crumpled heap of bone on the floor.

Sebastian’s voice, quiet in his ear, whispered, “It would have been a mistake.”

He stared down at the scattered bones.

“I didn’t know you,” Sebastian had said.

“I didn’t know you either,” Blaine replied. He thought of Sebastian’s father, the hesitant way he offered Sebastian’s dancing and singing to Blaine. “I still don’t.”

He knelt among the bones. He picked up one piece, and then another, gathering them in his arms before they slipped from his fingers. They clattered against the floor.

Then, piece by piece, he began to pick them up again.

 

* * *

 

On Sunday, Blaine went back to Dalton.

In the morning, he watched football with his father, the two of them sitting in stilted silence while his mother read a book and feigned interest every time the commentators grew excited. After the games, he kissed his mother on the cheek, accepted the curt pat on the shoulder from his father, and hefted his now-clean laundry to his car.

“Text us when you get back,” his mother said.

“I will,” Blaine promised.

Two hours later, Blaine pulled into the Dalton student parking lot. He had just sent a text to his mother when he heard a tapping on his window.

“Nick?” Blaine shooed him away to open the door and step out. “What’s going on?”

“We’re going to dinner in Columbus.” He jerked a thumb behind him, where several of the other sophomore Warblers were lingering at the entrance to the dorms. Trent was gesticulating at Jeff. “Want to join?”

“You just want me to drive,” Blaine said sourly.

“I’m wounded,” Nick declared, clutching at his heart. “Do you really think so lowly of me?”

Blaine eyed the group. Thad and Trent were both fifteen, Jeff was turning sixteen in December, and Nick was a January baby. They all had learner’s permits, but none of them had their licenses yet. “Who was going to drive if I hadn’t gotten back?”

Nick pointed at Jason from music theory, who had become their main beatboxer and picked up a nickname to differentiate him from Jason who was a junior. He was standing apart from the others, texting furiously on his phone. “Beat’s asking Joe,” Nick admitted, naming one of the juniors in the Warblers. Blaine remembered him as one of the few people who had put an entire 100 dollars into the betting pool last year. “He’s got an SUV with seven seats. We were going to bribe him with dinner.”

“You’d be better off asking Wes and David,” Blaine suggested. “They’re both more likely to say yes.”

“What about Wes?” Jeff asked, strolling up. “Hey, Blaine. Did you want to get dinner with us?”

“Only if I don’t drive,” he said, popping the trunk to get at his laundry and books. “And if you don’t mind waiting for me to put my stuff back in my dorm.”

“But you’ve got a license,” Nick complained.

“I just drove two hours,” Blaine retorted, slinging his bag over his shoulder and grabbing his laundry with the other hand. “Ask Wes and David.”

Jeff groaned, pulling out his phone. “Wes has been applying to colleges all weekend.”

“So he’s ready for a break,” Blaine called. He waved at Trent and Thad as he keyed into the dorm. He had just dropped off his things in his room and was wondering if he had a moment to light a stick of incense when he heard a knock at his door.

Wes was outside his door with David. “Nick said that he wanted me to drive you guys into Columbus for dinner?”

“Nick wanted me to drive them,” Blaine corrected, grabbing his phone and wallet. He checked the notifications—his mother had responded, and Kurt had sent another text. “He was also trying to get Joe, I think.”

“He’s got the largest car,” David agreed. “He’s also doing the December ACT.”

“Ouch,” Wes said. “Did he forget about Regionals?” He twirled his keys on a finger. “Coming, Blaine?”

“Are you driving?”

Wes sighed. “If I must,” he said, strolling towards the parking lot. David and Blaine exchanged conspiratorial grins. “David, you’ll also have to drive.”

“‘Course,” he agreed. “Nick said he’d pay for dinner if I drove.”

The others were waiting in the parking lot. Beat had been unsuccessful in persuading Joe, and was now standing with the rest of the sophomores.

“It cool if we crash this sophomore party?” David asked.

Wes said, “Who’s in my car?”

Blaine got shotgun in Wes’ car more out of habit than for any particular reason. He pulled the seat forward for Jeff’s legs and fished his phone out of his pocket, frowning when he saw another text from Kurt.

He switched his phone to silent, and then twisted in his seat to listen to Nick and Jeff squabble about whether or not it was okay to listen to the censored version of CeeLo’s song.

“We missed you, this weekend,” Wes murmured, as he pulled out of Westerville.

Blaine relaxed into his seat. “I missed you guys too,” he replied.

 

* * *

 

With the notes that the others had sent him, Blaine managed to return to classes on Monday mostly prepared. He had his homework completed, and when his teachers continued with their lessons, he managed to keep up with only a brief moment of confusion.

His teachers, luckily, had accepted Wes’ excuse of a cold without complaint. Wes had a reputation, and Blaine found himself suddenly relieved that nobody, not even the teachers, questioned him. Since he turned in his homework, they let his absence on Thursday slide—except for Mr. Ross.

“Stay after, Mr. Smythe,” he called as chemistry class—Blaine’s last class of the day—ended.

“We’ll wait outside,” Nick said. Thad made an appropriately sympathetic expression.

“Unfortunately, you’ve missed a lab day due to your cold,” Mr. Ross said. “I know you have Warbler rehearsal, but you’ll have to find a time to make it up.”

Blaine pulled out his agenda, grateful that Wes had warned him at dinner last night. He scheduled a make-up lab for Wednesday during his lunch period, and joined the others outside, phone in hand. Kurt had sent another dozen texts throughout the day. He replied to them, absently wondering how much time Kurt had during school, if he was texting so often.

“So,” Nick said loudly, nudging Blaine towards the senior commons. Blaine obligingly fell in step with the others. “Who’re you texting?”

“Kurt,” Blaine said. “The guy from McKinley?”

“And what would your husband say about this?”

Blaine scoffed. It would be too easy if Sebastian appeared out of petty jealousy. He almost wished Sebastian _would_. “Kurt’s just a friend.”

“A friend who doesn’t stop texting you.” Nick nudged him with an elbow.

Blaine ducked away. “How would you know?”

“Your phone wouldn’t stop buzzing through the entire class.”

“It’s on silent!”

Thad shook his head. “You’ve got that light flashing alert on. I could see it flickering through your pants.”

“What about Blaine’s pants?” Trent asked, falling into step with them as they passed by the physics classroom.

“That spy from Lima wants to get into them,” Thad said loftily.

Trent shrugged back. “Can’t see why not. Blaine’s a catch.”

“He’s married!” Thad protested.

“I wasn’t saying that Blaine would _let_ him,” Trent argued. “Just that anybody with ears would agree that Blaine’s a catch.”

“Here here,” Nick chorused, raising his hand. Jeff absently raised his hand as well, echoing him.

“See?” Trent said.

Blaine rolled his eyes. “I’m right here,” he pointed out. “Literally right next to you. Also, Kurt is just a friend who’s going through a hard time.”

“I bet he is,” Nick leered.

“Nick,” Blaine said.

“Com’on,” he protested. “That was too easy.”

Blaine sighed, waving his phone. “Look. I’m married to Sebastian. Kurt is just a friend. He is going through _some difficulties_ ,” he emphasized, rolling his eyes at Nick’s grin. “He’s reached out to me, and I’m helping him. Now, can we go to rehearsal before Wes murders us?”

Jeff patted Nick on the shoulder, “Let’s go.”

“But Jeff,” Nick began.

“Let it go,” he said, poking Nick in the side with each word. Nick flinched away and poked back. Jeff batted his hand away, pressing his advantage.

Blaine eyed the two of them before stepping around, Trent and Thad following his lead.

“How mad do you think Wes will be if they’re late for rehearsal?” Trent asked as the three of them left the others behind.

Thad stuck his hands in his pockets, “He’ll probably make them put the room back by themselves.”

“Nick would deserve it,” Blaine muttered.

Trent patted Blaine on the arm. “Hey. Relax, man. Nick’s just being a shit, you know that.”

He closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

“Take some extra time at dorm shrine tonight,” Trent suggested. “I know that makes you feel better. Or, you’ve got one in your room, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” Blaine said. He inhaled the phantom scent of agarwood, and remembered scattered bones beneath his fingers. An unsettling chill crept up his spine. “Yeah.”

 

* * *

 

He didn’t dream, and Blaine was surprised at the disappointment that flared, sharp and spiteful, as he woke. What was the point of loosening his soul from his body if he couldn’t even dream of the realm of the dead when he wanted to?

He jerkily lit the incense, flicking the lighter with shaking hands. He closed his eyes over the spark flickering in pre-dawn light. Outside the sky was graying, the chill of the morning was settling into the room, and Blaine bowed over the incense and resented.

_What did you expect_ , he had asked his father. _For you to have faith_ , his father had said. For Blaine to wait.

I’m waiting, he thought, trembling from the tips of his toes. I’ve _been_ waiting. What had waiting gotten him?

He closed his eyes and breathed, his fingers shaking as he clenched them together.

_You already almost died once._

Blaine slammed the incense into the sand.

“I’m waiting,” he said, “Husband.”

 

* * *

 

Wes took one look at him and brought him to dorm shrine.

“I’ve prayed to Sebastian already.”

“I think you need more guidance than your husband,” Wes said, lighting incense. Blaine followed suit begrudgingly. “Ancestors exist for a reason.”

Blaine stared at the photo of his great-grandfather, a grainy black-and-white photo of William Anderson, who he had never met. His parents had packed the photo into his belongings the day he had moved to Dalton, and once he had placed it with the other photos at the dorm shrine, he had never felt the need to move it.

Wes picked out his own ancestor—he had a triptych on the senior shelf—and bowed: once, twice, three times, before sticking the incense into the large pot of sand.

“What do they exist for?” Blaine asked, more sourly than he intended.

“Guidance,” Wes said. “Clarity,” He nudged Blaine into the beginnings of a bow. “Now pray.”

Filial duty compelled Blaine to finish the bow, to ask for wisdom and patience. He had grown used to meandering conversations with Sebastian, to the familiarity of a soul that had found his and decided to stay.

This time, he prayed by rote.

When he raised his head, Wes was studiously staring at the wall just beyond Blaine. “Breakfast?” he asked mildly.

Blaine nodded, slowly.

“Your phone’s buzzing,” he added.

Blaine’s hand flew to his pocket. “It’s Kurt,” he said, unlocking his phone.

“The kid from McKinley?”

He nodded.

“How’s he doing?”

Blaine’s breath caught. “I think he’s lonely,” he said, finally. “He’s been texting me a lot.”

Wes stared up at the high ceilings as they walked to the cafeteria. “You said he was being bullied.”

“Yeah.”

“Hm.”

“He’s asked if we can hang out. Tonight.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “That’s a long drive for a Tuesday night.”

He nodded.

“Bring him around—we’ll all say hi.”

“I…” he hesitated. “I thought I might drive to Lima.”

Several other students eyed them curiously as Wes froze. He waved them ahead into the cafeteria, taking Blaine by the forearm to tug him aside. “It’s a Tuesday,” he said.

Blaine shrugged. “He could use a friend.”

“You have class on Wednesday.”

“I’ve finished most of my homework. The rest can wait a day.”

Wes shook his head. “That’s four hours—and we have rehearsals on Tuesday.”

He looked away. “I was thinking I’d get permission to miss this one.”

Wes took a deep breath. “Blaine.”

Blaine said, hurriedly, “He’s alone, and I can help. I—” He inhaled sharply through his nose. “You helped me,” he said.

“I drove you to Columbus, not _Lima_.”

“I meant you listened.”

Wes blinked, once, jaw slack.

“I just want to help him,” Blaine explained, looking down. “I just want to be his friend.”

Wes said, “Blaine.”

“I can help him,” Blaine said. “I want to help him.”

 

* * *

 

He met Kurt and his friend for dinner, he drove back, and he lingered outside the door to his dorm before opening it. Agarwood, the evening air, and the lingering scent of coffee rushed into his lungs. His hands were steady as he cleaned out the cup, checked on the ashes, and then closed the window.

He slept, didn’t dream, and woke.

Kurt continued to text him, and Blaine continued to reply. Sebastian remained maddingly silent, and Blaine continued to wait.

_Have faith_ , his father had said.

Blaine clung to old dreams, familiar memories of that night in Paris; they had spent a summer’s day in Paris Disneyland, Blaine’s unfamiliarity with the location tempered by Sebastian’s memory. Sebastian took him by the hand and dragged him, laughing, through the hedges, in dizzyingly narrow circles until they stood in the middle of the Cheshire cat, grinning at each other just as madly. They shared an ice cream, vanilla flavored melt dripping over their fingers as Sebastian wrapped his larger hand around Blaine’s to steal a bite, and then another, and another, smirking the entire time. As the sun set, they ended up in the Phantom Manor, their fingers finding each other in the darkness, damp, still sticky with sugar, to cling together.

Blaine had woken up with his cheeks damp, his mouth still curved.

Sebastian had asked, “Do you wait?”

“Will you?” Blaine had replied. He had pressed his fingers to Sebastian’s cheek, traced the freckles darkening under the summer sun.

He had laughed. “It’s deathly dull in the other world. You’ll have to entertain me until you can join.”

“And how should I do that?” He had smiled, let Sebastian press close, let his husband rest their foreheads together. He had closed his eyes, head raised towards the sun.

Sebastian’s breath was warm against his cheek. “You’ll have to sing.”

Blaine’s smile had curled, like a healing gash in his heart. He had closed his eyes and listened to his Sebastian’s voice, humming as if he were waiting a hundred years to see his husband. He had pressed closer, until Sebastian’s voice didn’t only echo in his ears, but rattle the ribs of his chest.

He had thought about never waking.

He jolted awake, a sob catching in his throat; Sebastian’s voice still echoed, a fading memory as he woke. “I have to sing,” he whispered, pressing his fingers to his cheeks. He curled around the spasm of sorrow in along his side. “I almost forgot.”

Already, the details were fading like smoke. His fingers clenched, desperately, trying to burn Sebastian’s voice into his memory, even as he drifted from class to class to rehearsal and then back to dreamless nights.

With Sectionals looming, Thad had taken it upon himself to schedule rehearsals on the weekend. Blaine joined the rest of the Warblers in the senior commons in the morning, met the other sophomores in the library to study after lunch, and then they made their way back to the senior commons for evening rehearsal. Wes drilled their vocals, separating them into their vocal parts to go over the harmonies with a fine-tuned ear. David taped a stage onto the floor and caught them if they were a toe out of position.

At night, Blaine joined Wes at the dorm shrine, where he prayed to his ancestor, and then retreated to his room, where he quietly narrated his day to the fading photo of Sebastian.

Kurt texted him throughout the days; he responded. The weekend ended and classes resumed. Blaine added his homework and the three upcoming unit tests into his schedule, negotiating study group hours with Thad and the others.

Kurt transferred into Dalton.

“He’s taking getting into your pants a little seriously,” Nick muttered in chemistry class as they were working through problems in the book in pairs, jabbing Blaine in the back with a pencil. “Transferring to Dalton?”

“We’re in class,” Blaine hissed back, twisting to glare. “And I’ve already told you that we’re only friends.”

Thad rolled his eyes.

Jeff, sitting next to Nick, whispered, “It’s odd to transfer mid-year.”

Thad scribbled a note— _Wes says bullying at his old school_ —and slipped it behind him. Blaine eyed the note leerily as it passed by.

Nick whispered, “Oh.”

Jeff let out a low whistle, “Damn.”

“Zero harassment policy at Dalton,” Blaine muttered, as a shadow crossed over his notebook.

Mr. Ross loomed before them. “Mr. Smythe,” he said, sounding only slightly impatient. “Is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

“No, sir,” Blaine said automatically.

“Good. You’re presenting question six.” He turned away. “If you’re going to chat,” he added, lowering his voice slightly, “Have the decency to discuss the problem set, and not rumors of new students.”

“Yes, sir.” He heard the others echo him, lowly.

“And your lab report,” he added, placing the lab that Blaine had missed by visiting Kurt on Thursday facedown on the desk. “Well done. Let’s try to bolster that immune system as flu season kicks in, hm, Mr. Smythe?”

Blaine picked up the report, checking the grade. A B+. He smiled, relieved, back. “Yes, sir. Thanks for letting me make it up.”

Mr. Ross moved away.

“You’re lucky he likes you,” Thad whispered.

Blaine shrugged. Most teachers at Dalton liked him. He chalked it up to the hours of studying he had put in last year and Wes’ influence. “Did we do question six yet?”

“Not yet,” Nick muttered, clearly chastised.

“I did,” Jeff said absently. “I can explain it if you don’t get it.”

“I’ll let you know.” Blaine bent over the books, focusing only on the scratch of pencil lead over paper, the rustle of paper turning, the problem at hand.

Everything faded until it was just Blaine. Blaine and the problem.

Blaine and the problem of his missing husband.

 

* * *

 

Wes said, “I suppose we could let him join the Warblers.”

Thad said, “I did research; he’s a countertenor, did you know?”

David said, “I didn’t arrange for a countertenor in our sectionals setlist.”

Blaine looked up from where he was editing Thad’s English essay. “I’m not a council member. Why am I in this meeting?”

“You got an A on your last two essays,” Thad said, flipping through his folder.

“Wes edited those for me.”

Thad looked over at Wes. Wes raised an eyebrow back. Thad slowly offered, “Wes… is busy?”

“We value your insight, Blaine,” Wes said placidly.

“Are you sure this isn’t because you all feel bad about the betting pool last year?” Blaine turned a page in Thad’s essay.

“I only put in twenty dollars,” David said. “I don’t feel bad at all.”

“I only put in fifty,” Wes added.

“I put in sixty,” Thad admitted. “Which, according to Nick, is the most out of any of the freshmen that year. But Brandon put in a hundred.”

“That’s a decent amount,” David observed.

“Andrew did too,” Wes added, naming one of the other graduated seniors. “And John,” baritone, current senior, “and Sam,” tenor, also a senior.

“How do you know these things?” David asked.

“I was on the council last year,” Wes said. He turned to Blaine. “You aren’t here just because we bet on your relationship with Sebastian last year. We do value your insight, Blaine.”

He put down Thad’s essay. “This is about Kurt,” he said.

“It’s just over a week until Sectionals,” Thad said, flipping through his banner. “We’ve been rehearsing. It’s too much to ask to add an extra body in now.”

“We haven’t _completely_ finalized our setlist,” David admitted. “We could switch out some songs and maybe change the choreography a little to add him in.”

Wes confirmed, calmly, “This is about Kurt.”

Blaine stared at the essay in his hands, letting the words blur before him. “Okay.”

“Normally,” Wes said, “we wouldn’t let anybody join so close to Sectionals.”

“But you think he needs it,” Blaine said, quietly. “He does.” He inhaled, sharply, familiar pain running along the cracks in his ribs. What had he done, those months unable to sing? What had he done, those months unable to play piano, to make music? “Let him in.”

“Are you sure?” Thad asked.

Blaine nodded.

“I’ll adjust the choreography,” Thad said.

“I’ll figure out the arrangement,” David added.

“I’ll talk to Kurt,” Wes finished.

Blaine rose, jerkily, to his feet. “I’ll talk to him,” he said. “It’ll be better, coming from me.”

 

* * *

 

“We’re taking bets on how long before Kurt asks you out,” Nick said, knocking on his door later in the evening. Blaine had been finishing some reading, having retreated to his room to keep from being distracted by Trent muttering as he worked on his Spanish homework.

“Nick,” Blaine began.

“Before you say anything,” he interrupted, holding a hand up, “this isn’t a bet on your relationship with your husband.”

“We’re just friends,” Blaine said, wearily, “and do you really think it’s a good idea to bet on the new kid?”

Nick paused. “What?”

“He’s probably feeling like an outsider already. He doesn’t need a betting pool to add to that.” He held his book up before his face in an attempt to end the conversation.

“So no bet from you.”

“You should bet on something else,” Blaine said, loudly.

Nick sighed. “Alright. What should we bet on?”

Blaine lowered the book. “We can bet on how far we’ll get this year.”

“Isn’t that just asking for somebody to throw the competition to win the bet?”

“So put a limit on the betting pool,” Blaine said, but he was frowning. “Or maybe not. Bet on how many Ivy Leagues Wes is going to get into.”

“All of the seniors are going to have an advantage,” Nick whined. “They’re all editing each others’ essays.”

“They aren’t in charge of college admissions.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Do you really think Wes isn’t going to get into every school he applies to?”

Blaine shrugged. “You never know?”

Nick heaved a sigh. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll drop it, for now. But I’m blaming you if Wes gets mad that we’re betting on his future.”

“I’ll live,” Blaine said, wryly. “I can take Wes.”

“So how much are you putting down?”

Blaine checked his wallet. “I’ll put down fifty for Wes getting into all eight.” He pulled out three crisp bills, frowning. “Actually, seven. He isn’t applying to Brown.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Already an advantage,” he groused, taking the money and tapping on his phone.

“Anybody who talks to him knows! He’s been talking about it for months.”

“You’re the only sophomore who’s close to Wes,” Nick said, shaking his head. “No, it’s not an insult. It’s just… you’re closer to him than the rest of us.”

Blaine swallowed and said, “He gave me some rides, last year.”

“Yeah,” Nick said. “We know that. It’s just an observation. He’s a good guy.”

“Yeah.”

“See you at English tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Blaine held up his book. “See you.”

 

* * *

 

They gave Kurt a bird, instead.

Officially, Pavarotti was part of any incoming Warblers’ responsibilities; last year, Blaine had shared responsibility with the other freshmen and the new sophomores and upperclassmen, trading off so he was only responsible for the bird one day of each week. Unofficially, caring for the songbird was how the council hazed the freshmen, and so Blaine had ended up feeding Pavarotti and cleaning his cage with Nick, Jeff, Thad, and Trent while the sophomores and upperclassmen ignored Pavarotti altogether.

These freshmen, gleeful at having a new Warbler before the semester had even ended, were all too happy to foist responsibility off on Kurt. They even had Pavarotti brought down from the dorms to hand him off in pompous ceremony.

Kurt, pale but straight-backed, accepted the bird cage. He tried to laugh about it, but there was an edge to his voice as he threatened to bring it into a coal mine.

Blaine eyed Nick and mouthed, “I told you not to bet on him.”

Nick rolled his eyes back.

Wes tapped the gavel. “Let the council come to order.” He began to recite the agenda from memory, and paused, politely, when Kurt interrupted.

“I have a lot of ideas,” he exclaimed. “Warblers, if I may?”

From his spot on the couches, Blaine had a perfect view of the council table. “Great,” David mouthed to Thad. Thad smiled grimly back.

Wes gestured to Kurt to go on.

Blaine smiled weakly as Kurt rambled. Absolutely dreamy, he called their voices, and Blaine closed his eyes to hide his reflexive wince. He tried to remember Sebastian’s voice, his fond gazes, the way he had said that Blaine sung like a dream, but his mind was full of cobwebs. He opened his eyes to see Wes’ too keen gaze on him.

Blaine tried to smooth his face into mild interest as Kurt concluded, “I think we should open with _Rio_ by Duran Duran.”

“Uh,” David said, brows furrowing as he chuckled disbelievingly. “The council is responsible for song selection.”

“But we appreciate your enthusiasm, Kurt,” Wes said, before David could launch into a tirade about how he had spent hours finalizing their song arrangements for this year’s distribution of vocal ranges. “It’ll come in handy one day, when… you’re sitting behind this desk.” He smiled, steering the discussion back to the matters at hand. “Now—”

Wes snagged Blaine by the arm as rehearsal ended, tugging him to where the rest of the council was gathering. Blaine glanced behind him to see one of the freshmen, Adrien, tapping Kurt on the arm. “Hey,” he said, “let me take Pavarotti, I’ll show you where he usually stays in the dorms. Are you boarding or commuting?”

“What’s going on?” Blaine asked, turning away from Kurt. He heard the door shut behind Adrian and Kurt as they left the senior commons.

“Joe’s dropping out of Sectionals.”

“What?”

“He’s signed up for the SATs, not the ACT,” David said grimly. “They’re the same day as Sectionals.”

“Shit,” Blaine breathed. Joseph had a _solo_ for Sectionals.

“We’re opening up auditions for his solo,” Wes said. “But we wanted to offer it to you, first.”

Blaine shook his head instantly.

“I thought you’d say that,” David said wryly.

“I have _Teenage Dream_ and _Soul Sister_.” His shoulders drew in. “That’s two solos already, and I’m a sophomore.”

“We might cut _Teenage Dream_ ,” David said. “I haven’t figured out what arrangements would be like with Kurt in the mix. And now we’re losing Joe.” He grimaced, again.

“Yeah,” Blaine breathed.

Thad said, “I’ll text Nick and Jeff about the solo then.” He pulled out his phone. “Can you add Kurt to the group chat, Blaine?”

He nodded, rolling his shoulders back. It clicked sharply, and Blaine frowned. “Hey,” he said. “Can we invite Kurt to audition?”

Thad’s mouth puckered, like he had bit into a lemon.

David said, “Uh.”

Wes eyed the two of them. “That’s a very nice idea, Blaine,” he said pointedly. “I’m sure it will make him feel more welcome. Let him know when you see him, alright?”

Blaine smiled back. “Alright.” He said, “Hey, David, I have independent music study on my schedule and practice room time, if you need it?”

“I should be good, but I might just take you up on that.”

Wes clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Blaine.”

Blaine nodded. “I’ll go let Kurt know,” he said. He swung his bag onto his shoulder, before wincing and shifting it to the other shoulder.

“I’ll see you at dorm shrine,” Wes called pointedly back.

 

* * *

 

He took Kurt to the dorm shrine, after letting him know about the audition. “You’ll like this,” he assured him.

“I’m sure I will,” Kurt chuckled back.

Unlike Blaine’s tiny shrine, tucked in the corner of his room, the dorm shrine was massive. The cabinet was old mahogany, varnished to a sheen, lined with a hundred tiny drawers with a gold-plated handle each. Some people kept personal belongings in the drawers; Wes kept a tiny cup for tea in lieu of rice wine in one of the top drawers. Blaine, with a personal shrine in his room, only stored a portrait on the shelf with the other sophomore ancestral portraits, flanking the cabinet at the bottom left.

In the place of honor sat a porcelain pot filled with sand, painted with delicate lotus flowers and glossed to just a bright a sheen as the cabinet. There were already several sticks of familiar agarwood burning down, students having wandered by throughout the day between classes.

“This is the dorm shrine,” Blaine murmured, inhaling deeply, “for people who practice.”

“Practice?” Kurt repeated, pinching his nose.

Blaine paused, halfway through fetching a stick of incense from the dorm store. “Do you not pray to your ancestors?”

“For what?”

Blaine blinked. “Well, guidance,” he said, lamely, pulling out the incense. He flicked the lighter, lighting the end. “Favors,” he added, bowing.

Kurt scoffed. “You don’t believe that.”

He swallowed, tightly. “You don’t have to,” he said, carefully. “But I pray.”

“Really?” Kurt snorted. “You believe in ghosts and all of that? This is the 21st century.”

He said, quietly, “I’d have to.”

“Why would you have to? Can’t you see how ridiculous—”

“Because he married a ghost,” a familiar voice—Thad—interrupted.

Blaine set the incense, red side down, into the sand. He turned around, “Thad,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

Thad shrugged back. “To pray?”

“You’re married?” Kurt asked, sharply.

“I am,” Blaine said, to Kurt. “I married Sebastian just over a year ago.”

“Well,” he returned lightly, jerking his chin up. “And how did you meet Sebastian?”

How did he—Sebastian, standing by the window in the senior commons, Dalton blazer stretched over his shoulders like he belonged, like they could have had the years together, hooking their pinkies under the desks during class, brushing their knees against each other during meals, Sebastian’s hand warm against the small of his back during rehearsal.

His breath caught.

“Blaine Anderson,” Sebastian would have said, long fingers wrapping around Blaine’s. “Sebastian Smythe.”

We met at Dalton, Blaine wanted to say. It lingered on the edge of his larynx, an entire life he would never experience. “We were betrothed a few years ago,” he said, instead.

“Oh!” Kurt exclaimed, nodding sagely. “So it’s an arranged marriage.”

Thad snorted. “Not to hear Blaine talk about it.”

Blaine shot Thad a look.

“And this Sebastian…”

“He’s dead,” Blaine said, suddenly wanting to leave. “He died over a year ago.”

Kurt said, “Oh, I’m… I’m so sorry.”

Blaine exhaled, tightly. His fingers clenched, and he realized his nails were biting into the soft flesh of his palms. He relaxed his grip and tried to smile affably at Kurt. “His parents asked if I’d marry him, and we got married a bit later.”

Kurt stuttered, “But…”

“I don’t pray at dorm shrine often,” he continued, smile fixed on his face. “I’ve got a private one in my room where I make offerings to Sebastian.” He gestured at the sophomore shelf. “I keep a photograph of my great-grandfather here instead.”

Thad, behind Kurt, dug out his own stick of incense and lit it. Agarwood smoke drifted, filling the spaces between them.

Blaine said, “You don’t have to pray, or even come here, if you don’t keep the traditions.”

Thad stepped past them to set his incense in the sand.

He continued, “This isn’t a temple school. You can do what you’re comfortable with. Most people come here at least once a week. Wes comes here every day unless he’s going to the Westerville temple or the one in Columbus. He organizes carpools for anybody who prefers that.” He exhaled, forced himself to smile, and stepped to the side.

Thad walked past them, leaning against the doorjamb to wait.

Kurt glanced at Thad before turning back to Blaine. “Oh. I’ve never gone to one before. Maybe you… could show me?”

Blaine inhaled sharply, familiar agarwood and the memory of Sebastian beckoning with an empty hand. “Buy me something nice with the money,” his husband had demanded, brazen. As the months had passed, he had grown more audacious, asking for not just Courvoisier from his father’s liquor cabinet, but new clothes, the latest technology, expensive coffee. Blaine had laughed and purchased the paper offerings online, burning them in the dorm courtyard after they had arrived, watching the smoke curl into the air while Wes waited, patiently.

“Wes is better at explaining things,” Blaine said, dispelling the memory. “He organizes burnt offerings almost every month.”

Kurt opened his mouth, “But—”

“I’m sure this is very confusing.” His smile felt painted on. “But you’ll get used to it in no time.”

He followed Thad out of the room.

 

* * *

 

He was dreaming again.

Blaine drifted; his heart beat a steady line against his ribs, his feet moving almost of their own accord, following his heartbeat as he opened doors and climbed through windows. Through room after room, house after house, he wandered, unable to leave. Days passed, months passed, years passed within the span of an evening of sleep.

He opened the front door and found himself staring down an identical hallway. He opened the kitchen window into another kitchen. He leveraged himself onto counters and through windows only to find himself back where he started.

He turned and went to Sebastian’s room.

Already, Sebastian’s room was beginning to grow dim, fading along the edges of his vision. He crawled into Sebastian’s bed, drawing up the covers, his fingers clinging to soft cotton. He drew it around him, a cool embrace.

There had to be something that would bring him to Sebastian. Some clue, some hint, some evidence that Sebastian was waiting for him. That Sebastian _wanted_ to wait.

_I’d like to get to know you_ , Sebastian had said, drawing him in, wrapping him tight like the blankets in the realm of the dead. It felt like an eternity ago, the blankets flimsy compared to the former solidity of Sebastian’s embrace.

Blaine’s eyes flickered, to the ceiling, to the desk drawers, to the closet.

He slipped out of the bed, the blankets trailing behind him.

He opened the closet.

The bones lay on the floor, scattered where he had dropped them, bleached white with time. He picked a bone, remembering Sebastian’s face, his hands, the breadth of his chest. His fingers trembled, but he didn’t let go.

_I’d like to get to know you_ , Sebastian had said.

He set the bone down.

“Husband,” Blaine whispered.

Then, slowly, steadily, he began to piece the skeleton together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/a5utq0uz7sf5le9/btwa_chapter4.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/170065781641/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew-chapter-4)


	5. Chapter 5

When Blaine was younger, Cooper had received a 500-piece puzzle from an aunt who barely remembered that the Andersons had two sons, let alone the interests of the elder. Cooper had dumped the pieces on the floor, shuffled them around, and given up after putting in an hour of effort. After Cooper had graduated high school and left, Blaine had stumbled over the pieces and began the slow painstaking process of snapping them together alone. He had finished, years later, when walking had been too painful and singing too difficult to do much else but sit at home and carefully, achingly, pick up each piece with his right arm and move it to the correct position.

There were over a hundred bones in an adult skeleton. There were over a hundred bones, lying disassembled at Blaine's feet.

His knee creaked and popped as he knelt, beginning to separate the pieces. Despite only a brief stint of anatomy in AP Biology last year, Blaine found himself piecing together the vertebrae with ease, clicking the first, second, third, fourth, fifth in place without thinking.

The bones were white against his hands. The bones were warm, were cold—ached with a phantom pain that lingered like the agarwood smoke.

He bent over the bones and pieced them, like a puzzle, together—

The sixth vertebrae. The seventh. The eighth.

—bone by bone, he built the spine until he woke up, his hands clenched on empty air.

 

* * *

 

“What’s this about the new kid getting a solo?” Trent asked as they waited outside their English classroom.

Blaine glanced pointedly at Thad, who was leaning against the wall on the other side of Trent, doing a good impression of somebody who wasn’t eavesdropping. “Thad is actually on the council,” he pointed out. “Why are you asking me?”

“Thad’s decorative—”

“Hey!”

“—everybody knows that Wes is actually in charge,” Trent continued amiably, ignoring his fellow sophomore. “And you’re close to Wes.”

“He just drove me around a few times last year,” Blaine said, not for the first time.

“I didn’t see Wes offering rides to other people,” Trent replied, he crossed his arms over his chest in an awkward attempt to look intimidating. It might have worked if Blaine hadn’t shared Freshman English with Trent and seen him recite Ophelia’s lines while flinging flowers around the classroom.

Blaine, patiently, said, “I couldn’t drive, and it was a little awkward asking my father-in-law to drive me to run errands.”

“Right,” Trent said. “You’re married.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Blaine asked.

“Does the new kid know that you’re married?”

“Yes,” Blaine said.

“He does now,” Thad said at the same time.

Blaine frowned at Thad before turning back to Trent. “What do you mean by that anyways?”

Thad kicked away from the wall, fixing his blazer. “I can explain that,” he said, drily. “You should have seen the way the kid was looking at you in rehearsal.”

“He’s older than us,” Blaine felt obligated to point out.

“The guy, then,” Trent corrected. “But yeah, he was staring at you like you hung the stars in the sky.”

“You didn’t,” Thad added, in case Blaine didn’t know that.

“Wow.” He laughed. “I would never have guessed that I wasn’t responsible for stars.”

Trent laughed as well. “But he wouldn’t stop looking at you,” he added.

“It would have been weird if we didn’t already know that he wanted in your pants,” Nick said, walking up with Jeff as the door opened. “I think the freshmen were a little confused.”

Blaine groaned. “Oh my god.”

“Hi, Blaine,” Jeff offered as they shuffled into the room with the rest of their classmates. “I heard you were showing the new kid around.”

“His name is Kurt,” he pointed out, as they settled at their usual table. “He’s a junior, and we’re just friends.”

“Just friends who want to bone,” Nick muttered in an undertone.

“Blaine’s married,” Thad hissed back, kicking Nick in the ankle.

“Okay,” Nick said, kicking back. “Just friends where one party wants to bone and the other party doesn’t.”

Jeff pinched Nick in the side.

“What was that for?”

“We’re in class,” Jeff replied tartly. The five of them fell silent as Ms. Lawson swept by to collect their homework.

Blaine made a vaguely dissatisfied noise in the back of his throat. “Okay,” he whispered, as Ms. Lawson strode to the front and began to write the day’s agenda on the board. “Maybe Kurt is interested in me. But I’m married, and I really care about Sebastian.”

“Hard to compete against somebody who’s dead,” Trent whispered amiably back, fishing his book out.

Thad nodded. “Don’t they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder?”

“We’re in _class_ ,” Jeff hissed.

“Thank you, Mr. Sterling.” Ms. Lawson said from the front of the class. “Let’s begin, if you boys are done gossiping?”

Blaine shrunk down in his seat.

“Stop slouching, Mr. Smythe.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said. He straightened, the vertebrae in his spine clicking, and couldn’t help but remember the dream.

 

* * *

 

“So, Thad,” Nick said amiably, throwing an arm around the darker-haired boy. Thad scowled back. “What does the council want to hear for this audition?”

“You know the song,” Thad said.

“Sure,” Nick said. “I also know how Joe sounded when he sang it.”

“And you also know we have a week until Sectionals.”

Jeff said, “So you’re looking for somebody who can replace Joe.”

“Surprise,” he drawled back.

Blaine’s mouth quirked up of its own accord.

“Have we finalized the setlist?” Nick asked. “Or is this a solo that we aren’t even performing?”

“David is pretty set on it,” Thad admitted. “He’s trying to figure out what needs to change in our arrangements because we’re losing a tenor and gaining a countertenor.”

“I heard he might cut _Teenage Dream_ ,” Nick said.

“It’s a good performance,” Jeff said, a little apologetically, to Blaine, “but is it _Sectionals_ good?”

“Blaine’s voice is enough to make the worst arrangement good enough for Sectionals.” Nick flung an arm out dramatically. “Blaine Smythe, ladies and gentlemen. The Warblers’ secret weapon.”

Blaine rolled his eyes. “I’m hardly a secret weapon.”

Nick said, “You’re a sophomore.”

“So are the two of you!”

Jeff shrugged. “And I have zero solos. How many do you have?”

“Let me count,” Nick said, ticking his fingers. “One. Two. _Two_ solos.”

“Wes even moved the audition date because you got sick,” Jeff continued.

Blaine held up his hands. “Alright,” he said. “Fine. But I’m still not a secret. My photo is on the Warbler website along with last year’s performances. So are all of yours.”

“He’s got a point there,” Thad said. “Anyways, David’s pretty set on performing _Viva la Vida_ , and so we need somebody to replace Joe. That’s all I’m saying on the subject. I hope you guys are ready, since auditions are tomorrow afternoon.”

Blaine glanced at the clock. He had at least twenty minutes before his next class. That was enough time to go back to his dorm, make an offering to Sebastian, and get back to the main building for pre-calculus. He scooped up the pear on his tray and opened his mouth.

“Visiting your husband?” Thad said loudly.

He blinked. “I was going to,” he said, slowly. “Why?”

Thad jerked his head to the side. Blaine followed the movement to see Kurt. Thad said, just as loudly, “I think it’s wonderful that you have such a great relationship with your husband, Blaine.”

“Thad,” Blaine hissed as Kurt scowled and whirled away. “That’s uncalled for.”

“You’re married,” Thad said.

“And you’re happily married,” Nick added.

“Committed,” Thad continued, with a scowl at Nick.

“I think I’m supposed to say something here.” Jeff shrugged. “But Nick and Thad kind of covered it.”

“Look, guys.” Blaine straightened, tugging his blazer straight. In an undertone, he continued, “Kurt was harassed at his old school. I have a chance to help him—”

“Why you?” Jeff interrupted.

“What?”

“Why do you have to help him?”

Blaine spluttered. “Because it’s the right thing to do?”

“Sure,” Jeff said. “Does that mean you have to drive to Lima on a weekday?”

Blaine blinked.

“That’s a two-hour drive,” Nick said slowly, “each way.”

“You skipped rehearsal for him,” Thad added.

Blaine looked away.

“You’re doing a good thing,” Jeff said. “But are you sure you aren’t sending him the wrong message?”

_You always want to do the right thing, instead of doing the right thing because you want to._

Blaine inhaled, sharply, “I don’t think it’s any of your business.” His fingers tightened on the pear, and he forced them to relax before they bruised it. “I’m going to visit Sebastian.”

_Even if it means marrying me._

 

* * *

 

He knelt before the bones, cradling a spine in his hands. There were no muscles or tendons to hold the vertebrae together, yet somehow they held their form.

“I’m dreaming,” Blaine whispered.

The skull seemed to turn to him, seemed to look through him. _Of course you are_ , it seemed to say. _Would you be kneeling here, hands full of bones, if you weren’t?_

“I don’t want to dream of this,” Blaine said, his hand moving of its own accord to brush against the pelvis, the spine. Six months ago, his dreams had been incandescently light. His fingers caught on the weight of the bone, heavy like the sonorous beat of a drum.

It reared up, an unrelenting tide that swept him under and away. _You don’t want to dream of this?_ it demanded. The bones beneath his hands trembled, shuddered, slipped away like sand through the spaces between his fingers. His fingers spasmed, as if trying to catch the sand, but the tighter he gripped the faster they slid away. _Then why are you here?_

He woke up gasping, his heart pattering along the cracks of his rib cage. His hands trembled as he lit incense, as he knelt before Sebastian’s smiling portrait.

He clasped his heavy pulse between his hands, as if he could force his heart to slow through will alone. His knee ached, his hands trembled, and his heart beat a rapidly increasing rhythm against his ribs.

“Sebastian,” Blaine whispered.

But instead of silence, there was Sebastian’s voice, whispering, _You always want to do the right thing_.

He flinched.

“I can explain,” he whispered, as the smoke curled in the air. “About Kurt.”

Kurt was hurting, he tried. Kurt was being bullied. How could Blaine stand to the side when he could do something? How could he stand and watch, watch Kurt crumble to the floor, cover his head with his arms, curl tight as if to protect a fragile heart?

_Instead of doing the right thing because you want to._

“I want to help him,” he whispered.

_Even if it means marrying me._

Blaine closed his eyes. “I wanted to try.”

And he had tried. They had tried—together—building a life in careful, perfect, dreams. For six fleeting months, Blaine had managed to forget. He had forgotten what marrying Sebastian meant: the pledge to chastity, the life of solitude, raising Sebastian’s nephew and calling him his own.

He breathed, in through his nose and out through his mouth, in long, measured, breaths.

His knee ached, against the rough carpet of his dorm room. The sky was lightening with the autumn sun, and Blaine could hear the shuffling as the lacrosse team shuffled down the hallways for morning practice.

Would Sebastian have been among them?

He lurched to his feet, and set the incense in the sand. It drooped, slightly, and Blaine stared at it for a long time before he brushed it, gently, until it stood straight.

“Good morning, Husband,” he said, dutifully.

There was no reply, just as there had never been. Nonetheless, Blaine felt the absence keenly.

He got dressed and began his day.

 

* * *

 

 _Dear Blaine_ , Albert’s email began. _I have been thinking of your circumstances—_

__

“Hi Blaine!”

Blaine paused, fork halfway to his mouth.

“What are you reading?” Kurt chirped as he sat down next to him.

“Oh!” Blaine turned off the screen on his phone. “Hi, Kurt.”

“Hi,” Kurt said, shifting closer. He peeked blatantly at the phone still in Blaine’s hand; Blaine slipped it into the pocket of his trousers. “So what were you reading?”

“Just an email.” He smiled and changed the subject. “Are you ready for your audition this afternoon?”

Kurt clasped his hands together. “Oh, yes!”

“What are you singing?” Blaine asked. He took another bite of his salad. “Did you get the audition information?”

Kurt nodded. “It’s a surprise,” he explained, “but I’m sure you’ll be blown away! I spent a long time debating on a song.” He leaned in to say, conspiratorially, “I even went back to McKinley to get Rachel’s advice.”

“Oh. Cool.” Kurt had mentioned Rachel before; Blaine was pretty sure that she was McKinley’s female soloist. “But I don’t make decisions on solos,” he pointed out, “I’m not on the council.”

“Oh.” Kurt sat back. “Well, don’t you have a say?”

“Sure,” Blaine said, poking at the grilled chicken with a fork. “We all do. But Wes, David, and Thad are the ones who really make the final decision. Didn’t the email say that?” He thought about opening his email to check, and then remembered Albert’s email. He kept his phone in his pocket.

“I thought that you’d have more influence,” he said. “Since you’re the soloist.”

“Only for two songs,” Blaine mumbled. “We’ve got five in play for Sectionals, and David’s already starting to go through the sheet music to put together arrangements for Regionals.”

“Isn’t that a little soon?” Kurt said.

Blaine shrugged. “Acapella is hard.” Sometimes he wished they didn’t do acapella. Then he remembered his first performance, in the beginning of his second freshman year, the way he had blended seamlessly into a unit, becoming an anonymous face in a crowd. For a moment, he had stopped being Blaine Anderson, with an impending marriage to a boy he had never met. He had just been music.

“Well,” Kurt declared, brushing invisible dust off of his trousers. “I cannot wait to show you what I’ve got.”

He smiled back. “Just channel that confidence in your audition, and you’ll do great.” He swallowed the last bite of his salad, looking around the cafeteria for the other sophomores. He had finished the history test early, but not that early. He looked down at his empty plate.

“Is Blaine Smythe giving audition advice?” Nick drawled, right on cue. “And I missed it?”

Blaine twisted in his seat to greet Nick and Jeff, the two of them holding trays of lunch. Both of them had, despite the hours between lunch and Warbler rehearsal, opted for lighter lunches as well. “Just telling Kurt that he’s going to be great. Should I tell you two the same?”

“Ha,” Jeff droned, the two of them joining Blaine at the table. “It’s meaningless if you say the same thing to all of us.”

“I want all of you to do well,” Blaine said, cheerfully. He peered at the doorway. “Where’s Thad and Trent?”

“Thad went to the library; he said he’s going to eat with Wes and David later,” Nick said. “And I thought Trent was with you.”

Blaine shook his head.

“He finished right after you,” Jeff explained. “And then he tripped over three bags trying to hand his test in.”

“Ouch.” Blaine winced. “Is he okay?”

“Probably. He went to the nurse to get his leg checked, but it’s probably fine.”

Blaine winced, his knee aching in sympathy.

Kurt cleared his throat. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, extending a hand. “I’m Kurt Hummel.”

Nick and Jeff exchanged glances. “We know who you are,” Nick said. “I’m Nick. This is Jeff.”

“Pleasure,” Kurt said primly.

“Nick and Jeff are also Warblers,” Blaine said. “They’re also both auditioning for the solo.”

“We can’t all be Blaine Smythe,” Nick said again, jovially.

Blaine winced, again, for a completely different reason. “If this is about the bet, I’m leaving.”

Jeff kicked Nick under the table.

Nick kicked back.

“Bet?” Kurt asked.

Nick sat up. “Oh yes.”

“Oh no,” Blaine said.

Jeff shook his head.

Nick fished his phone out of his bag. “Kurt Hummel, as you are a Warbler, allow me to induct you to the _true_ tradition of the Warblers: the Warbler Betting Pool.”

Blaine groaned.

Jeff said, “It’s not a tradition.” To Kurt, he said, “Ignore Nick, he keeps trying to make this betting pool a thing.”

“Hey! We have a bet ongoing right now. You put money down.”

“Only because you wouldn’t stop bothering me about it,” Jeff retorted.

“This is the one on Wes, right?” Blaine asked. At Nick’s nod, he explained, “We’re betting on how many Ivy Leagues Wes can get into.”

“Blaine vetoed all of the fun topics,” Nick complained.

Blaine glared back. “My relationships are not fun topics.”

“They kind of are,” Nick said.

Jeff added, “Until you make disappointed speeches.”

“Then they aren’t as fun,” Nick admitted.

“It wasn’t a speech!”

“It kind of was,” Jeff said. Nick nodded vigorously. “I mean, it was a good speech. But it was a speech.”

“It wasn’t—”

Kurt cleared his throat. “What speech?”

“It wasn’t a speech,” Blaine said, again. He stood. “I’m going to my room.”

Kurt said, “Oh. But—”

Nick interrupted, “Wait, Blaine—”

Blaine shook his head, slinging his bag onto his shoulder.

Nick said, contrite, “Hey, dude. You know I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Blaine inhaled deeply. “I know. I’m not mad,” he said, forcing himself to smile. “I just need some time alone.”

Jeff added, “I’m sorry too.”

Blaine scooped up his tray. “I’ll see you guys in PE, alright? I just need some time with Sebastian.”

Kurt said, “Wait. But—”

Blaine interrupted. “I’ll see you at rehearsal, Kurt.”

As he left, he could hear Kurt asking: “Isn’t Sebastian his husband? Isn’t he dead?” He sped up his steps, to put himself out of earshot, fishing out his phone from his pocket and opening up Albert’s email again.

He hated himself, a little, for not being disappointed that there was still no news of his husband.

 

* * *

 

Kurt didn’t make it through the audition.

Nick and Jeff did.

Blaine was lying in his bed, inhaling the agarwood still smoldering on the shrine, avoiding the thought of Kurt’s uncannily familiar bitter expression by rereading Albert’s email.

 _Dear Blaine,_ it began.

_I have been thinking of your circumstances, and I wonder if you have heard from Sebastian. Before you ask, I still have not been in touch with him. The other ancestral spirits remain cordial and present, but Sebastian has yet to appear. None of them know of his whereabouts._

_Have you noticed any side-effects from visiting the realm of the dead? Any hauntings? Let me know immediately if you notice anything._

_In other news, Uncle Alexander told me that you will be performing soon. Good luck! I hope to see you another time. I’ve unfortunately already made appointments for that date._

_Please contact me when you are less busy; I would like to ensure that your soul is still in one piece after we’ve sent it to the realm of the dead, and that you aren’t experiencing any side-effects. Indulge a cautious medium, Cousin._

Cousin. It was a strange address, one that Blaine had been entitled to since his marriage over a year ago, but one that he had yet to be addressed by. During the lunar new year, surrounded by Sebastian’s relatives, not one of them had addressed him as Cousin.

He let his arm fall to the side, his phone hanging loosely from his fingers.

Had he noticed any side-effects? He closed his eyes and thought of bones, heavy and pale against his fingers, his hands moving of their own accord.

Had he noticed any side-effects?

Blaine snorted, turning onto his side, pulling his knees into his chest. He checked the Warbler chat—David had sent out their set list for Sectionals and Blaine had two out of the three solos—and then flipped back to his email.

_Cousin._

__

He turned off his phone and went to sleep.

 

* * *

 

He was kneeling before the closet, the bones spilling out, pale against the dark wood of Sebastian’s childhood bedroom.

“Husband,” he said, kneeling among the bones. His voice echoed in the empty house, as thin as the smoke that curled, just out of reach. “Sebastian,” he breathed.

There was no reply.

The ferocity of his anger took him by surprise. His hands trembled on the bones, and his jaw clenched.

“I married you!” He shouted, into the deafening silence. “I—”

_Even if it means marrying me._

He flinched, his hands catching on a spine, the curve of ribs, the small gap between tibia and fibula. He brought his hands together, interlaced his fingers tightly, and rocked back onto his heels.

“I said I’d try,” Blaine said. “I said I wanted to try. Isn’t that enough?”

He could remember Sebastian’s hands, larger than his, wrapping around his shoulders, closing around an ankle, embracing his frigid hands. He squeezed, tightly, as if it would bring the memory back.

“I came here for you,” he said.

The bones stared back.

“Is this what you’ve become?” Blaine asked. He brushed against the bones. “Is this—”

He raised his head to the ceiling.

“I don’t know what to do.”

 

* * *

 

“Somebody’s flat, Tenors!”

Blaine grimaced.

Wes slapped his palm on the table. “Again.”

Blaine straightened with the rest, opened his mouth—

“Flat again. Folks, you need to listen to each other!”

Trent groaned.

It had been an hour already. Blaine had gotten sick of _Viva la Vida_ ten minutes into rehearsal, when Jeff had sung the wrong part for the third time. Wes had stopped them, dragged Jeff out formation, and snapped: _again._

He was getting sick of that word.

“Blaine,” Wes snapped, looming before him. “Sing.”

Blaine’s mind went suddenly blank. He opened his mouth and sang his part. Clearly it passed scrutiny, because Wes nodded and moved on. Trent smiled, relieved, when Wes moved on without judgement.

Wes said, to one of the juniors, “You’re flat again!”

“It’s a lot of pressure with you looming like that,” Kevin retorted.

“What do you think Sectionals is?” Wes shook his head. “Sing it again, Kevin. And this time remember your notes.”

Blaine’s breath hitched, and he glanced at his phone.

“Blaine,” David hissed. “Put that away.”

Blaine shoved it into his pocket.

“We have one week, Folks!” Wes rapped the table. “From the top. Jeffrey Sterling, I expect you to have your part down now.”

“Yes, Sir,” Jeff said, only a little sarcastically.

“Kurt, this is acapella, everybody is relying on you to hit your notes.”

“Alright,” he said, pale.

“Nick, more confidence, you’re singing lead vocals.”

Nick nodded.

“Count us in, Nick.”

Blaine closed his eyes, let his breathing sync with the others, and sang.

“Good,” Wes said. “Now let’s try to do that again. Nick?”

 

* * *

 

“I didn’t know Wes was such a slave driver,” Kurt said, sitting down next to Blaine as rehearsal ended. He sipped from his water bottle, and then smiled at Blaine. “How are you doing?”

Blaine shrugged. “It’s a bit more intense than usual,” he admitted. “But Wes always does this. He has perfect pitch,” he added.

“Oh,” Kurt said. “So this is normal?”

Blaine shrugged. “Usually we don’t have three people trying to learn a new part a week before a competition.”

“I’m going to murder Joe when I see him again,” Thad added, dropping down on Blaine’s other side. He shoved a thermos into Blaine’s hands.

“You got me coffee?”

“Do you think I’m going to let you have caffeine in the evening? It’s hot water with honey and lemon.”

Blaine sipped it, only slightly mournfully. The honey was sweet and the steam felt good against his sinuses. “Thanks,” he said. “What did I do to deserve this?”

Thad snorted. “You’re a soloist. Don’t feel so special, I got Nick a thermos too.”

Blaine grinned into his cup. “Alright,” he agreed.

Thad refused the thermos when Blaine tried to pass it back. “Extra rehearsal tonight after dinner for you, Kurt.”

“What?”

“You’re new.” Thad stood. “And you’ve just learned this part. Jeff’s at least been hearing Nick’s part for over a month now.” He patted Blaine on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, only David’s going to be there. I have lacrosse practice.”

“What’s Wes doing?” Blaine asked.

“Temple.” He jerked his head in the general direction of Columbus. “You want to join him?”

Blaine hesitated, glancing at Kurt. “Yeah,” he said, finally, “if he’s got space in his car.”

“Ask him yourself.” To Kurt, he said, “David said he’d find you at dinner.”

Kurt, pale, said, “Fine.”

Thad said, “I’ve got to run. I’m late enough as is.”

Blaine watched as Thad trotted out. He blinked, suddenly realizing that everybody else had also left in the time Thad had come over. He stood. “I’m going to find Wes,” he said. “Good luck.”

Kurt said, “Hey, Blaine?”

Blaine paused.

He said, “You said you were married.”

“I _am_ married,” Blaine corrected. His fingers curled into his palm, and he shoved his free hand into his pocket. He smiled.

“But you said he’s… dead?”

Blaine’s breath hitched. “Yes,” he said. “I married his spirit.” He took a step back. “I really should go find Wes before he leaves,” he said.

“Wait—”

Blaine said, “I’ll talk to you later, Kurt.”

 

* * *

 

Wes was waiting at his car. “We’ll get something to eat in Columbus.”

Blaine nodded.

“Get in.” He unlocked the door, climbing into the driver’s side. Blaine followed suit, buckling himself into the passenger seat. “I see Thad delivered my message.”

“You don’t usually go on a Thursday.”

“Pretty sure I need some guidance today,” Wes said, pulling out of the student parking lot. “Three new parts.” He shook his head. “We should have given Jeff the solo.”

“Nick was better,” Blaine said into his lap. They had voted on it. Somebody had tried to vote for _Blaine_ , even without auditioning; David had said something about the Blaine Smythe effect. “And Jeff had the harmony down by the end of rehearsal.”

Wes hummed.

“Why did you ask me to come?”

Wes glanced at him before focusing back on the road. “You didn’t have to.”

“Maybe I could also use guidance.”

“You have seemed unsettled, recently.”

Blaine said, “I’m fine.”

Wes said, tactfully, “We’ll go and pray.”

They drove to the temple in silence. Wes parked in the mostly empty lot, and they went into the temple, the air still rich with agarwood smoke. There was an attendant sitting just inside the door; he looked up when Wes walked in, before nodding politely at both of them and slumping back in his seat.

Wes lit incense, set it in the sand, and knelt. Slowly, Blaine followed suit. He stared at his hands.

After a long time, Wes stood. He stepped away, and Blaine curled his fingers on his knees, as if held in place by a heavier force. He knelt, in silence, inhaling the sweet incense and exhaling long, drawn-out breaths. Finally, with still no answers from his husband, Blaine also stood, finding Wes talking to the attendant in low, hushed voices.

“Thanks,” Blaine said, and found he meant it. There was a tension between his shoulder blades that seemed to have eased during those long, steady breaths on his knees.

Wes smiled back. “Let’s get some dinner,” he said. He nodded at the attendant, who nodded politely back and went to clean up the shrine.

“I’ve been dreaming,” Blaine said, after they had finished eating.

Wes sipped his water. “About?”

“Sebastian’s house.” He looked up from his empty plate. “I’ve been going into the realm of the dead.”

Wes said, very quietly, “I thought you didn’t know how.”

“I don’t,” he said. “But sometimes I dream, and sometimes when I dream, I’m there.” He traced circles in the condensation on his water glass.

Wes made a vaguely disbelieving sound in the back of his throat. When Blaine looked up, he said, “I don’t disbelieve you. It’s just…”

“I haven’t found Sebastian,” Blaine said. “I don’t know what to do.”

“How long has it been?”

“Four months.”

Wes said, “Oh.”

He said, “I don’t know what to do,” again.

“What do you want to do?” Wes sipped his water, again.

Blaine looked up. The water beaded in tiny dimples along the glass. He traced the rim with a finger, before he murmured, “I want to find my husband.”

Wes nodded. He set his cup down. “Let’s go then,” he said. He paid for their meal and led Blaine back out to his car. But, instead of driving back to Westerville, Wes drove deeper into Columbus.

“This isn't the way back to Dalton.”

“Your husband is dead,” Wes replied, his voice as calm and placid as if he were describing the weather. It was cloudy, a fact. Blaine’s husband was dead, a fact. “What would you do if your husband was alive and missing?"

Blaine shrugged. At Wes’ raised eyebrow, he tried, “Call his dad?”

Wes glanced briefly at him. He pulled into a familiar parking lot. Blaine recognized the squat building standing in the center, the lights still on and visible through the blinds.

“This is where Albert’s office is.”

“He’s your family medium.” Wes leaned back in his seat. “Underclassmen curfew is at 10:30, so I’d like to get back to the dorms by 10.”

“Don't you have studying to do? Or college apps?”

Wes stared back at him. “Blaine,” he said. “Do you think I can focus on college apps with Sectionals this close at hand?”

He smiled a little ruefully back.

“Go talk to your family medium—I checked his office hours on my phone, and it should still be open. And if you're going to do any experimental things, send me a text so I can sleep in my bed.”

Blaine clambered out of the car. He paused, pulling open the door a little to stick his head in. Wes had his arms folded behind his head and looked to the world as if he were taking a nap. “Hey,” Blaine said.

Wes opened an eye.

“Thanks.”

 

* * *

 

“Blaine,” Albert said, his body arresting as he saw Blaine in the foyer of his office. “You’re supposed to be in school.”

“Yeah,” Blaine said. He glanced at the carpet, a soothing shade of dark blue, two shades darker than the Dalton blazer. He looked up, swallowed, and asked, “Can we talk?”

Albert studied him, taking in the planes of Blaine’s face. “Sure,” he finally said. “I’m at your service.” He jerked his chin towards his office, and Blaine followed him quietly down the hallway and into the room, still brightly lit despite the time of the night.

Blaine sat.

Albert poured him a glass of water, and Blaine cupped it in his palms. It was cold against his skin, a little damp, the water rolling like the churning in his gut.

“I’ve been dreaming of the realm of the dead.”

Albert inhaled, sharply.

“I…” He looked up. “I haven’t found Sebastian.”

“You’ve gone back,” Albert said, slumping into his seat.

Blaine nodded.

“How many times?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Once? Twice?”

He shook his head, again. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “More than a dozen.”

Albert murmured, “More than a dozen times.”

He said, “Nothing happens.”

“Blaine.”

Blaine shook his head. The water slopped over the edge of the rim. “No. Nothing happens. I dream. I end up in Sebastian’s house, and I walk. I always, I always find myself in his room, in front of the closet. If I try the windows, I just end up back in the same place. The front door leads to an identical front door.” He shifted the glass, shook water off of the backs of his palms. “I’m going in circles.”

Albert inhaled, deeply.

“I don’t know where to go,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. I’m there, I’m in the same world as Sebastian, and I can’t even leave the house to find him.”

Albert exhaled.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Blaine,” Albert said, after a long silence. “You’re in… Sebastian’s house?”

He looked up. “Yes,” he said, slowly.

“When you dream, you go to Uncle Alex’s house?”

Blaine nodded.

He sat back, shaking his head. “Amazing,” he murmured.

His hands shook, and he clutched the glass tighter, as if that would steady his hands. “What do you mean?” he demanded. “Am I supposed to go somewhere else, where else…”

Albert shook his head. “That wasn’t what I meant.” He tilted his head up, lip pulling to the side, and then focused back on Blaine. “I don’t know where you would be supposed to go.”

“Because I only married into this family,” Blaine snapped.

“Because I’ve never gone into the realm of the dead.”

Water spilled onto his trousers.

“I’m a medium.” Slowly, he rose, fetched a towel and handed it to Blaine. “I’ve never been to the realm of the dead. I stand on the edge and call the dead to me.”

He stared, steadily, as the water spread across the fabric, staining it dark.

“I never expected you to go back on your own,” he said. “I didn’t know it was _possible_. I don’t know why you’re going, or why you can’t seem to leave the house.”

Blaine whispered, “Okay.”

“But—” His hand was warm on Blaine’s shoulder. “There has to be a way out.”

“I don’t know what it is.”

Albert’s voice was very kind. “I don’t know either. But no spirit has ever been trapped in a maze of houses. I would have heard about it. So there has to be a way out.”

He nodded.

“I’ll look into it,” he promised. “Until then, try to just focus on yourself.”

Blaine blinked.

“You have a performance soon, right? And midterms are coming up too.”

Blaine nodded.

“Focus on yourself.” He squeezed. “All you can do is your best.”

 

* * *

 

He was building a skeleton out of bones.

He lingered. The spine, intact. The hands, each finger bone seemingly perfect in its place.

The legs, one knee in pieces.

He swept the fragments into his hand. Piece by piece, he set them in their place, as if he had always known how a knee could break. As if he had always known how this knee had broken.

They were cold to the touch, but under his fingers, they seemed to warm.

He flinched, and when he woke, his fingers were wrapped around an aching knee.

 

* * *

 

“You look like you’re about to be sick.”

Blaine glanced at Nick. “I _feel_ like I’m about to be sick.”

“Yeah, old people singing will do that to you.”

“Nick!” he hissed, as the Hipsters shuffled (literally) off stage. Blaine didn’t think he could see anybody younger than his grandparents in the group.

Nick grinned back, but his mouth looked decidedly queasier than it should be. “Oops?” he offered.

“No shit.” He inhaled, deeply, from his nose, before exhaling through his mouth. It was a familiar exercise. “Wow.”

“What was Wes thinking, giving two sophomores all of the solos for Sectionals?” Nick muttered. He tugged at the blazer.

“I guess he didn’t want a solo this year.”

“He could have given it to the juniors.”

“He did. Joe had to drop out, remember?”

“How could I forget?” Nick inhaled deeply as well. “That’s why I’m in this position.”

“Hey.” Jeff frowned at them from over his phone. “You could sound more enthused. I had to learn a new harmony because of you.”

“You had to learn a new harmony because of Joe,” Nick corrected. “And also because of my stellar talent.”

“Glad to know you’re feeling better,” Jeff said, evenly, before turning back to his phone.

The green room was filled with a muffled quiet. The freshmen were quietly humming their parts at each other, Thad was having a heated debate with Wes and David, and the upperclassmen were playing poker with a frenetic energy.

Blaine breathed, steadily, his heart pounding against his ribs.

He closed his eyes. Over the speakers came the quiet chime of a bell.

“Let’s go, Warblers!” Wes called.

He stood, eyes still closed. The touch on his shoulder shocked him; he flinched, turned away, opened his eyes.

Wes stared steadily back at him. “Hey,” he murmured. “You’ll be fine.”

Blaine blinked back.

“If I didn’t think you’d be fine,” Wes said, “I would never have voted for you.”

 

* * *

 

He stood, in the center, under a stage of bright lights. His chest tightened, suddenly; his ribs were aching, the tips of his fingers were numb, his knee threatened to buckle.

He opened his eyes, lifted his chin, and sang.

 

* * *

 

They spilled into the lobby after their performance, Nick slapping him on the back in relief. “Can’t believe we made it through with _sophomores_ ,” David stage-whispered to Blaine, nudging him in the side. Trent wrapped his large arms around Blaine in a hug, laughing a little giddily.

“Great job, Folks!” Wes called. “Some of you guys have parents here, so we’ll see you guys on Monday. The rest of you, get on the bus.”

Blaine turned to follow Wes.

“Blaine,” his mother called.

Blaine froze.

His parents stood there, along with Sebastian’s father. His mother was beaming, his father wasn’t frowning, and Sebastian’s father’s face wore a rictus of pride and grief. Blaine exhaled and realized he had been holding his breath.

“Mom,” Blaine said. “Dad.” He looked at Sebastian’s father, his mouth dry.

“Blaine,” Sebastian’s father said, nodding once in greeting. His expression evened out. “The Warblers sounded wonderful.”

He nodded back.

His mother swept him into a hug. She drew back to pat him on the cheek. “The performance was great,” she said. “Are you boys going back to Dalton?”

“I…” He glanced at Wes, who stared steadily back. He turned to his parents. “I don’t have to,” he said, finally.

His mother said, “I’m sure you boys would like to celebrate on your own.”

“It’s only Sectionals,” he muttered, awkwardly.

“Still.” His father’s voice was quiet, but it cut through the chatter of the lobby crowd as parents greeted their children. “You did very well.”

Blaine’s breath caught.

His mother squeezed his shoulders, her touch suddenly tentative. “Blaine?” she asked.

Blaine stared at his father as an unsettling dread crept over him. “Thank you,” he said, steadily.

His father nodded. “You were dancing.”

“A little.”

He nodded again. “That’s good.” He inhaled, deeply through his nose, and exhaled in a long, drawn out, breath. “That’s good.”

 

* * *

 

He laid, awake, in bed for a long time, a familiar terror creeping up on him like a dream. He closed his eyes, opened them, and then closed them again. Agarwood drifted into his nose, and his eyes snapped open.

He was in Sebastian’s room.

The skeleton stood, almost intact, just inside the ajar closet door. He touched the reconstructed knee, and without thinking, moved to the cracks along the ribs. On the right side, the fifth, sixth, and seventh ribs. On the left side, the fourth, seventh, and eight ribs.

“I know this pattern,” Blaine whispered.

He stepped back, stared at the bones. The bones stared back, bleached white, broken in familiar locations.

His hand moved, unbidden, to the empty shoulder.

The shoulder. What had happened to the shoulder?

It had been made of aluminum. High schoolers played baseball with aluminum bats, and these boys had wielded them with the finesse of angry, drunk, underage boys at a party they didn’t want to attend.

He bent, picked up the clavicle, broken into three pieces. He offered them up, and they fell into place, as if they had never been broken. He traced the fracture in the scapula, the clean break in the humerus.

He knew, intimately, each of these injuries.

“No,” he whispered. He stepped back.

The skeleton shuddered, once, and then, in an eerie mirror movement, also stepped back.

Blaine flinched. Then, he stared, steadily, taking in the bones, standing just inside the closet of Sebastian’s room.

Inside _his_ room.

“How?” Blaine whispered. He reached forward, and the bones reached forward at the same time. He touched the tips of his fingers. “I didn’t die.”

But he had. He had torn his soul out, offered himself into the realm of the dead. He had, in order to find Sebastian, offered himself freely into this world.

He had said he would do anything to find Sebastian.

Blaine touched the cracks in the ribs, the lucky knee, the shoulder. He remembered each crack in exquisite detail. The sound, like a snap, of a boy cracking against the floor. The hollow chest of a violin collapsing under the pressure of heavier force.

“I did this,” Blaine whispered. He remembered: opening the closet to encounter a monster, swinging the bat—

The bat.

He had swung the bat, he had shattered the bones. His arm, an inexorable force, destroying the veneer of a monster only to find himself in the broken bones.

_Even if I have to break every wall—_

He had swung the bat—they had swung the bat—and he had lifted his arms to protect himself, turned away from the blow, his shoulder had cracked under the force.

“I don’t want to remember,” Blaine whispered.

His ribs had shattered. On the right side—on the left side—

He had woken up in the hospital. It had been months of recovery. He had started at Dalton with a brace on his knee, and the same weekend he had gone home to take it off—to _leave_ it off—his parents had joined him in the living room. His mother had taken his hands in hers, and—

“I married you.” Blaine wrapped his fingers, his intact fingers, around the bones. “I changed my life for you.”

But his life had already been changed.

Blaine stared at the broken bones, again. Slowly, he reached out and gathered them, fractures and shattered fragments all, in his arms. For a long moment, he just held the skeleton.

Then he stepped back, and he brought it with him.

He lurched, under a sudden weight, but then his knee straightened, his shoulder rolled back, his chest expanded, freely, as he inhaled and then exhaled. Staggering, he held the bones against him until the weight faded, until the skeleton faded into dust.

His cheeks were wet. He touched them, and then turned. He walked, down the stairs, through the hallways, each step firm and steady. When he looked back, he could see nothing. When he walked forward, he could only hear his footsteps, not the rattling of a broken kneecap against itself.

He stood at the front door. This time, Blaine opened the door and stepped into sunshine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/p5w7zplk3i02ur9/btwa_chapter5.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/170175630966/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew-chapter-5)


	6. Chapter 6

“You’ve been back in the realm of the dead.”

Blaine stared at the calloused tips of his fingers, at the uniform ceiling tiles, anywhere to avoid looking at Tala’s frown as it stuttered across the laptop screen. “Yeah.”

“Over a dozen times.”

“I don’t know,” Blaine said. “Maybe.”

“And you didn’t tell anybody?”

Blaine shrugged.

“Blaine,” Tala said. Static crackled across the speakers. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He exhaled, inhaled, and said. “So you could stop me?”

“Blaine,” Albert said, from where he was leaning against his desk in his office. He reached forward, as if to touch Blaine on the knee.

Blaine pulled back, shaking his head. “No,” he said, staring at the space between the laptop and Albert. Albert had a corner office, and the December sun was shining through the ajar blinds. It left a stripe of cold sunlight against the dark wood. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“Blaine,” Albert said, again.

Blaine closed his eyes. A year ago, to the day, he had come to this office. He had asked to commune with his husband. He had, on that day, chiseled a crack into his soul’s grip on this world.

Sebastian had grinned at him, called him _Blaine Anderson_.

Blaine said, “I made a commitment.”

Tala’s sigh came as a crackle of static. “Blaine,” she said.

Blaine stood. Steadily, he asked, “Is this meeting just to scold me?”

“Sit down, Blaine.” Albert sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I didn’t ask you to come here to lecture you.” He turned the screen, adjusting it to Tala could see him. “Tala, thank you for calling in.”

“It’s fine,” Tala assured him. “I was worried about Blaine as well.”

Blaine looked away.

“You said you’ve gone back to the realm of the dead.”

Blaine nodded.

“You said you were trapped.”

Blaine inhaled, sharply. “Well,” he began.

Tala said, “Blaine?”

 

* * *

 

“Up and at ‘em, Husband,” Sebastian had said, a day before Blaine left Paris. He stood, at the door to Sebastian’s own bedroom, while Blaine blinked himself aware of the dream. “There’s daylight wasting.”

“The irony,” Blaine had muttered back, pulling the covers higher up. “Considering this is a dream.”

Sebastian laughed. He held two mugs of coffee, still steaming, and as he strode briskly to the bed he didn’t spill a single drop. Blaine eyed his grace balefully. Dream or no dream, being able to walk that quickly with an open mug of coffee without spilling a drop was unfair. Sebastian had settled on the edge of the bed and sipped at a mug.

“Is one of those for me?”

“If you get up,” Sebastian responded placidly.

“I’m dreaming,” Blaine had complained. “Why do my dreams require so much responsibility?”

Sebastian had studied him, his gaze inscrutable. Almost nine months, and so much of Sebastian was still unknown. Blaine had learned to read the cadences of his voice, had begun to read the planes of his face, had yet to fully see his husband. After a moment, Sebastian had shifted, held up the second mug, and said, “If you sit up, I’ll give you this.”

Blaine scrambled, settling himself cross-legged next to Sebastian. He inhaled the steam as Sebastian handed the mug over, sipping the coffee and scalding his tongue.

Sebastian chuckled. “Steady there. You might be hot stuff, but you can still get burned.”

Blaine rolled his eyes in response. He took another, more careful sip. “This is good,” he commented.

“It’s what you offered.”

Blaine looked up. “Hm?”

Sebastian shrugged, sipping from his own mug. “Could use some Courvoisier.”

“Sebastian.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “I’m not questioning your commitment to offerings. Just your choice of them.”

“I’m underage.”

“You’re in Paris.”

“I’m still underage,” Blaine said, patiently. “I looked it up, just for you. Eighteen for liquor.”

“I have a dutiful husband,” Sebastian drawled. He drained the dregs of his coffee, crinkling his nose slightly.

“You’ll have to live without,” Blaine said, shifting. He took another sip before pressing his mug, half-full, into Sebastian’s hands.

“Not even when you get back to Ohio?”

“I’m not going to steal from your father’s liquor cabinet.”

“You did it before.” Sebastian closed his eyes, sipping at the coffee.

“Once!”

“I remember more than one incident.”

“Maybe twice.”

“Mm.”

“I’ll think about it,” Blaine said, turning to lean his cheek into Sebastian’s shoulder. He shifted, navigating the sharp edges of his bones. “Why did you wake me up?”

“No reason,” Sebastian had said, finally. He slumped, slightly, his body curling to accommodate Blaine’s. “I could have let you sleep the dream away, but as cute as you are, I’d rather have you awake.”

Blaine had smiled back, a glib response on the tip of his tongue.

And then.

And then—

 

* * *

 

Blaine stepped out into cold sunshine.

It was December, of course it was cold. There were no seasons in the realm of the dead, there was no reason for it to be cold. “Oh,” he said, softly.

This was a dream.

Blaine blinked into the bright sun, slowly stepping away from the threshold. He turned around, taking in the familiar stone walls, the dark wood trim, the house that he had been told to make his own. He twisted around, again, staring out—not into the sprawl of a lawn, a familiar street, another house across a hedge fence—but into a vast expanse of emptiness.

He took a deep breath. So this was the realm of the dead.

The ground rolled under him, simultaneously steady beneath his feet and as fleeting as waves lapping at the shoreline. His toes curled inside his shoes as if to grip onto the emptiness that was the ground.

“Sebastian?” he called, out of habit.

There was, as usual, no answer.

He stepped forward—one step, two steps—and then craned his neck to glance behind him.

The house was fading, like mist, from view.

Blaine swallowed.

The sky was gray like the moments before sunrise, but there was no sliver of rose gold peeking out from the horizon to indicate the east. Instead, everywhere he looked was the same—the same gray sky, the same blank space sprawling before him.

He inhaled, slowly, and then exhaled.

“Okay,” he said. “You’re wasting daylight, Blaine.”

He picked a direction and walked.

 

* * *

 

Blaine had returned to Sebastian’s house for winter break. Unlike the previous year, Blaine drove himself—sending Sebastian’s father a text before he left Dalton—and let himself in with the key that had been made for him. Like the previous year, Blaine had hauled his bags into an unfamiliar bedroom; months mostly away had dulled his memory, and the room he had spent the months of summer in no longer looked like his. Unlike the previous year, Blaine wasted no time dropping his books on the desk and making his way to the kitchen to find a basket full of pears, lush green dappled with a blush of red.

The shrine was familiar, more familiar than Blaine would have thought. But he had been seeing it for the past months, as he drifted through the facsimile of this house in the realm of the dead. It was better tended, this time; Blaine wiped it down, taking the time to dig the rag into the grooves of the picture frame holding Sebastian’s portrait.

He lit the incense. The agarwood drifted through the air, thin tendrils of delicate smoke curling in the air. Sebastian smiled out at him.

He left quietly, the incense still burning down.

 

* * *

 

Blaine had parked outside Albert’s office, in the same spot that Wes had parked in that night a few weeks ago. He had lingered in the car until the cold from outdoors had seeped through the cracks between the window and the frame.

“Thanks for coming in,” Albert had said.

Blaine had replied, “You asked me to.”

 

* * *

 

Tala crackled, “You think the skeleton was you.”

Blaine shook his head. “I know it was.” He inhaled, sharply, glancing at Albert before focusing on Tala’s static face. “The cracks were in the same places.”

Three ribs on the left, three ribs on the right. They had taken a bat, had brought it down with enough force to snap the fragile ribs: once, twice, three times—in too-steady swings. Blaine had involuntarily memorized every single crack during the months when he wondered if he would ever sing again.

(He had, he had found his voice again, he had, he could sing—)

Albert shook his head. “And then?”

“I put it back.” Each bone had settled to their proper spot. The knee, fragmented, stitched together again with surgery and Blaine’s hands moving on their own. The shoulder, shattered and restored as Blaine knelt in what had once been Sebastian’s room. His hands, out of control—

 

* * *

 

Sebastian caught his arms by the wrists, wrapped a broad hand around even as Blaine clutched back, and in a smooth movement, hauled Blaine out of the pool.

“This is an interesting way for you to appear.”

“I thought I was going to drown,” Blaine had spluttered back. He had appeared, this time, in the familiar setting of the Smythe pool. If he squinted, he could see Sebastian’s room, the curtains drawn to let in the summer sun. He sprawled on the ground, chest heaving painfully as he coughed, his cheek pressed against the warm concrete.

Sebastian’s hand had brushed against his as he pounded, steadily, against Blaine’s back. Once, twice, three times and then he was ducking away, twisting and rasping, “Ow.”

Sebastian had pulled back.

Blaine had laid there, in silence, the summer sun warm on his face, Sebastian a silent presence next to him. The birds sang and a leaf floated lazily down from the sky, brushing against Blaine’s cheek.

The sun was warm, the air sticky with summer heat, but Sebastian’s hands were warmer still.

 

* * *

 

Albert’s office was too warm in the winter. The vent hummed, steadily, blowing out a steady stream of warm air. Blaine had stripped off his jacket, leaving him in only a sweater, but a thin layer of sweat was already gathering along his collar.

“I wasn’t always in control of my body,” Blaine said, again. “Half of the dreams, it would be like somebody else was moving me, like I was watching myself move.”

Albert had a notepad: letter-sized, yellow paper, blue ruled, the top bound with a familiar brown strip. Blaine stared at it, even as Albert caught his gaze and twitched it against his leg. “Have you had similar dreams? Are most of your dreams lucid ones?”

 

* * *

 

He had jolted, suddenly made aware by the loud rapping of Sebastian’s knuckles on the doorframe. Sebastian'd lounged against it, dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt, as if he had woken early while Blaine had slumbered. As if he had brushed a hand over his husband’s leg—murmured “get some more sleep,” when Blaine had flinched in his sleep—and then slipped out of bed and gotten ready. As if he had paused whenever his morning routine brought him by the bed, lingering to press fingertips against a cheek, to wrap a curl around a finger, to just watch Blaine breathe.

“Sebastian,” Blaine had said.

“I’ve been wondering: am I disturbing your dreams?” Sebastian asked.

Blaine had blinked back. He had—

He had drawn the covers back, slipping from the bed and padding on bare feet against cool floorboards to his husband. He reached out. “You could never disturb me.”

“Ah, Husband,” Sebastian had drawled, mouth curling with amusement. “You say the sweetest things.”

Blaine flushed.

“But that wasn’t my question. What did you dream of, before you married me?”

 

* * *

 

“I don’t know. I don’t remember my dreams,” Blaine said. “Not before Sebastian.”

But he had.

Before his first freshman year, he had run the whole gamut of dreams. Standing in front of the class naked, running down the street in leaps and bounds until he was soaring in the sky, opening his lunch box only to find it crawling with spiders—Blaine had dreamed vividly and fantastically.

Until—

For a year, his dreams had been reduced to emotions: terror, caution, and sometimes even fleeting moments of joy.

Until Sebastian had come.

He had fallen asleep in Sebastian’s bed and woken up in the hallways of Dalton. He had wandered the hallways, drawn towards the one room where he spent all of his afternoons, and in that familiar room had been—

agarwood smoke

—Sebastian.

Suddenly he had been dreaming again, as vivid as the ones from his childhood.

Blaine blinked, his gaze shifting from the parking lot just outside the window to the notepad in Albert’s hands, “My dreams of Sebastian are lucid.”

“And your dreams without Sebastian?”

 

* * *

 

He woke up, his heart pounding, the blankets tight and suffocating.

He woke up, his shoulder pinned underneath his body, his fingers numb.

He woke up, cheeks damp, his knee twisted underneath the sheets.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t remember them.”

On the screen, Tala shook her head. “Blaine, we want to help you.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Blaine replied, his gaze flickering from the notepad in Albert’s hand to Tala on the laptop. “I found a skeleton in a closet. I put it together.”

Tala frowned. “What do you remember about the realm of the dead?”

Blaine inhaled. “It smelled like this.”

Albert cocked his head.

“It smelled like incense.”

 

* * *

 

No matter the time of day, Blaine’s dorm room smelled of agarwood.

Sebastian had laughed, the day before Blaine was leaving Dalton for the summer. “What will you do when you’re back with my father?”

“What does that mean?”

Sebastian brushed a finger along the shrine in the corner of Blaine’s dorm. He glanced at his finger, as if searching for dust. Blaine knew, from experience, that there would be nothing clinging to his husband’s finger; he maintained the shrine meticulously. “Well,” Sebastian said, “you won’t have your own personal shrine for me anymore.”

“Did you want one?”

“What?” He laughed. “No, please don’t drag a cabinet from the attic into my room.”

“Is that where I could find one?” Blaine grinned back, perching on the edge of his bed so he could prop a chin on Sebastian’s shoulder, pressing his fingers around Sebastian’s bicep like an embrace. He closed his eyes, tilting his cheek into Sebastian’s soft, straight hair. “Too late, the secret’s out.”

“Blaine.”

“Husband,” Blaine had retorted, in the same dry tone. “You couldn’t be asking me to neglect my spousal duties.”

“There is a perfectly serviceable family shrine in the house.”

“I don’t hear you asking me to use the dorm shrine for your morning coffee.”

“Do you expect me to share with your classmates’ decrepit ancestors?”

“What about my ancestors?”

Sebastian had sighed. “If I must. I suppose your ancestors are mine now.” He had pulled away, turned to face Blaine, brushed a hand down Blaine’s shoulder.

Blaine flinched away instinctively. “I think it’s technically the other way around.”

“Blaine,” Sebastian had said.

“I married into your family,” he had said, steadily. “I think that means I forsake my family and take on yours.”

“Blaine,” Sebastian had repeated, stepping back, and Blaine had wondered.

 

* * *

 

Albert pinched the bridge of his nose. “Blaine.”

Blaine looked up.

“We’re trying to help.”

 _I know, and I appreciate it_ lingered in his throat. “I know” managed to slip its way out, but the rest of it caught and he choked on it.

“It’s just concerning,” Tala murmured, “that you’ve gone back, and you weren’t in control of your body.”

“I—”

“I’m worried that you’re haunted,” Tala said.

“It wasn’t like that,” Blaine protested. “I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do. It just…”

Albert said, “Hauntings aren’t always noticeable.”

Blaine shook his head. “It wasn’t like that,” he repeated. It had been his hands, moving towards a foregone conclusion. There had been nothing else, just himself, kneeling before the bones. It had just been Blaine.

“Was there anybody else around you?” Albert asked. “Any other Smythe ancestors?”

“No.” Only Linda Smythe had ever appeared, and she had stopped appearing the day Blaine had taken a wooden bat and smashed his own ribs in. “No,” he said, again. “Not when I was in Sebastian’s house.”

Tala said, keenly, “And when you weren’t?”

 

* * *

 

“We are not spending the summer cooped up in my room.”

“I think it’s mine as well,” Blaine had protested, an obligatory protest, as he swung himself off of Sebastian’s bed. The summer sun was bright even through the curtains, but the room was still cool from the chill of nighttime. He pulled back the curtains. “And I’m not spending the summer cooped up in your room. I have a job.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” He gasped, clutching his heart dramatically, falling just short of flinging himself on the bed to writhe dramatically. “Husband, you wound me.”

Blaine had rolled his eyes back. “I told you.”

“Surely you jest.”

“Sebastian.”

He had laughed. “Alright,” he conceded. “You did. Singing and performing at amusement parks though?”

“And what would your idea of a summer job be? Interning at your father’s office?”

Sebastian had blinked, once, and then said, “I’m very fond of climate control.”

Blaine had laughed. “And here you were saying that you didn’t want to spend the summer cooped up in here.”

“There are other places with air conditioning.”

“And where would we go, then?” Blaine stepped closer, smiling. Sebastian’s eyes were very green, in the morning sunlight.

Sebastian’s fingers were warm around his wrist. “Trust me.”

 

* * *

 

Blaine rolled his eyes, flinging himself onto Sebastian’s bed. Albert and Tala had finally let him go after more than an hour of questioning, with strict instructions that he was to call them if he ever returned to the realm of the dead.

“It’s over,” Blaine had insisted. “I’m not stuck anymore.”

They hadn’t listened.

Blaine had, in an attempt to calm himself, driven around Columbus for an hour before returning back to Sebastian’s home. The rush-hour traffic had only made his aggravation worse. He managed to keep from slamming the doors shut when he returned, but only barely.

He closed his eyes, and then opened them.

Sebastian’s father had a piano downstairs. It was a lovely baby grand, with keys that were weighted a touch heavier than Blaine’s old piano in his old home. Unlike Blaine’s piano, this one sat quiet; there was a thin layer of dust on it, accumulated from the last time Blaine had been living in the house. He found a towel, wiped it down, and then lifted the cover to touch the keys.

It was, of course, in tune.

For a moment he simply at the bench, his fingers splayed over the keys. He thought about pounding his hands down, letting discordant chords echo the frustration that dragged at his limbs. He had never lost that ability, even when his fingers no longer moved the way they should have.

He lifted his palms.

The keys were smooth beneath the tips of his fingers. The keys were quiet. He sat for a long time, just touching the polished keys with the tips of his fingers, brushing them in long movements.

He sat, and when he could no longer sit, he closed his eyes and tried to become music.

 

* * *

 

Blaine spent the rest of his break with the other sophomores, working through their winter homework assignments and prepping for the upcoming semester with some of Wes’ old notes that he had acquired, and some of David’s notes that Thad had borrowed. He celebrated Christmas Eve with his parents, and Christmas with Sebastian’s father. He called Sebastian’s mother on his laptop in the hours in-between, wishing her a happy Christmas. On New Year’s Eve, he went to the Warbler party at Wes’ place.

“Going to ask for a ride again this year?” Wes asked, only a little sarcastic. He had sent in the last of his college applications that morning, and had yet to realize he could unwind.

Blaine shook his head. “I drove.” He had ended up driving Nick and Jeff to the party, but seemed to have picked up Trent for the drive back to their respective homes. “Happy New Year.”

Wes raised his glass back. “Happy New Year,” he replied. “For some versions of it, at least.” He drained his water and said, “I’ll see you at temple tomorrow.”

“I don’t know if we go to any.”

Wes shrugged. “Do you want to go?”

He shrugged back.

“Then go to mine.”

So, the next day, Blaine met up with Wes just outside the temple in Columbus, letting Wes guide him through the crowd of annual temple goers. “Your father-in-law didn’t come?” Wes asked.

Blaine said, “Maybe he’ll be by later.”

Wes shrugged. “Did you finish your homework?”

“Yes.”

“Practice the sheet music I sent out?”

“Yes.” Blaine let Wes drag him through the crowds to the shrine. He took the incense from the attendant, lighting it from the flickering flame and bowing for luck and prosperity. He stepped away, letting the crush of the crowd take his place, and joined Wes in the back, where he was cutting open a box of incense and parceling it out to various attendants. “Why did you ask me to come to temple?”

Wes said, “I didn’t.”

Blaine shrugged, taking the boxcutter from Wes to cut open another box. “Why did you tell me you’d see me here?” he corrected.

Wes took a deep breath. “Did you not want to?”

“It’s fine.” Blaine pulled out shrink-wrapped boxes of incense. “I don’t mind.”

Wes huffed under his breath. “Classes start soon.”

“Yeah.”

He said, “Have you talked to your family medium?”

“Sure.”

Wes paused. “Blaine,” he began.

Blaine turned around. “Did you ask me to come so you could lecture me?” He stared down at the boxes, bright red, with yellow trim. Agarwood, they said, in sans-serif font. “I’ve gotten enough lectures.”

Wes said, “Alright.” He bent back over the boxes, this time opening one full of MacBooks printed on thin paper. “No lectures.”

Blaine nodded.

“How were exams?”

Blaine took the offering, held on with both hands, and this time he began, “I didn’t fail chemistry.”

 

* * *

 

For two weeks, he couldn’t remember his dreams, but he woke each morning in Sebastian’s room without a familiar terror, and he considered that a victory. Winter break ended, and Blaine was hauling his bag back into the dorms, wiping down two weeks of accumulated dust on the shrine and brushing a thumb over smooth glass.

Sebastian smiled up at him, perpetually fifteen.

He blinked, rapidly, turning away.

Classes started again, along with rehearsal. Blaine lost himself in the familiar patterns of class, rehearsal, and the sophomore study group. Joe made a long-winded apology that mostly consisted of his inability to read a calendar, and a gracious offer to let Nick keep the solo if they decided to encore _Viva la Vida_. The council held auditions for their next round of solos, and Blaine was pleasantly pleased to receive another handful of solos. (Joe had wisely decided to not audition.)

He signed up to help clean the dorm shrine once a week, finding solace in wiping down the cabinet, cleaning out the incense butts, replacing the sand.

“Taking this a little seriously, aren’t you?” Kurt asked, smiling tightly when Blaine ducked out of coffee one afternoon.

Blaine blinked, clutching at his bag. “I signed up to clean the dorm shrine once a week.”

“I mean this… religion thing.”

“Have you talked to Wes about it?” Blaine asked, ignoring the twist of Kurt’s mouth. It was eerily familiar, but Blaine couldn’t recall where he had seen the expression before. He ignored it; “Wes can explain anything you don’t understand.”

“I understand it just fine,” Kurt shook his head. “I don’t understand how you can be so into it.”

Blaine thought of bones beneath his fingertips, the cracks of the ribs, the shattered knee, the humerus neatly severed. He thought of the empty eye sockets and the clenched jaw. He thought of the bones, so heavy, so light, so strong, so fragile.

“You don’t have to,” Blaine said, his voice so distant it sounded like a stranger’s in his ears. “I do.”

The weeks passed, one after another after another, until Blaine was driving back to Sebastian’s house for reunion dinner. He arrived at an already bustling house, aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents having drifted in over the course of the day. Albert caught him by the arm, a question in his gaze, and Blaine had simply shaken his head back.

He hadn’t dreamed of Sebastian or the realm of the dead.

Over dinner, he sat with Sebastian’s cousins and swallowed down his yearning. He let himself be drawn into the familiar routine of small talk, of catching up on months of distance. He didn’t let himself wonder if this was what would be in store for him once Sebastian returned: hesitant inquiries, exaggerated surprise, long silences before the next topic found itself.

He was grateful to slip away to the shrine, to surround himself with the familiar scent of agarwood, and to fall asleep in Sebastian’s room.

 

* * *

 

He was standing on the doorstep of Sebastian’s home, the house empty, the curtains drawn and the door tightly shut. The lawn stretched out before him as if it would never end, before it faded into the horizon.

Blaine inhaled, deeply: agarwood incense, smoke and ashes, freshly cut grass.

Blaine exhaled. Then he strode off the porch and onto the lawn. He walked, crossing the expanse, his bare toes curling into the dewy grass, into the lush dirt. His knee bent, his leg lifted, swung forward, and then the other leg did the same, over and over until the lawn ended and all that remained before him was a white emptiness.

He took another step, into the emptiness.

Behind him, the house faded into mist.

Blaine stepped deeper into the emptiness. He walked, in a straight line, one foot in front of the other, seeing only his feet and his hands as he swept them in front of him as if to brush aside mist that didn’t exist. His breathed slowly, each inhale and exhale in time with his footsteps. Finally, he stopped.

“Hello,” he said.

“Blaine Smythe,” the dragon replied. “It’s very nice to finally meet you.”

He stared back.

“Are you scared of me?” the dragon asked.

Blaine stared at it, long and sinuous, terrifying and magnificent. He could fit inside its jaw with space to spare, could be swallowed whole and spat out again.

He inhaled, deeply and painlessly, and when he exhaled, he said, “No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/b27xv8s5envxj7n/btwa_chapter6.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/170403442261/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew-chapter-6)


	7. Chapter 7

As January ended, Blaine actually caught a cold.

Wes appeared, without fail, at his dorm room after Blaine missed one of his volunteer slots for dorm shrine. He had his arms crossed over his blazer when Blaine had stumbled to the door and opened it, peering blearily out.

“You actually have a cold,” he said, sounding a little impressed.

“I texted you,” Blaine croaked back.

“Well, at least it’s now rather than closer to Regionals,” Wes said, too pragmatically for Blaine’s preference. He glanced around Blaine’s dorm, which had fallen to disarray in the eighteen hour span from when his throat had started to burn and the mucus had started to accumulate in his sinuses. He then turned to Blaine, taking in the sweatpants and sweatshirt that he had managed to pull on, a far cry from the slacks and blazer that Wes was wearing. “I’ll get you some soup,” he concluded.

“Thanks,” Blaine mumbled. “Can you close the door on your way out?”

“In a bit,” Wes said, stepping in. He shooed Blaine back to his bed, and Blaine curled up in the twin-sized mattress, squinting as Wes wiped down the personal shrine, emptied out the incense butts into the trash and poured the cold coffee out. “Where do you keep your incense?”

“What?”

Wes opened a drawer. “Found it.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to go through my things,” Blaine murmured, peering out from the blanket.

Wes ignored him. He found a lighter and lit the incense.

“Oh,” Blaine said. He sniffled, the scent cutting through layers of mucus. He blew his nose into a tissue.

Wes bowed, once, and then set it down in the sand. He bundled the trash—incense butts mixed with used tissues—and said, “I’ll be back with some soup in a bit.”

“Thanks.”

“Try to sleep.”

Blaine nodded, already drifting off.

 

* * *

 

He was standing on a ship, floating in endless mist. Everywhere he looked stood a wall of impenetrable fog. He strode, from bow to stern, from port to starboard, but no matter where he went, no matter how far he stretched his hand out, his fingers slipped through impenetrable mist.

Blaine turned around. Coiled around the mast sat the dragon. “You don’t want me to find Sebastian,” Blaine concluded.

“Is that why you’re here?” it rumbled.

Blaine blinked. “He’s my husband.”

“There have been many widows and widowers, but you’re the first to come here.”

“That can’t be true,” Blaine protested. He couldn’t have been the only person who had loosened his soul’s hold on his body. “Tala told me—”

“Do you know where you are?” The dragon interrupted.

“The realm of the dead.”

“And here?” The tip of its tail tapped the wooden planks of the ship, hard enough that it rolled against his feet. “Where are you now, Blaine Smythe?”

Blaine said, “I’m…”

 

* * *

 

He dreamed of a beach, the waves lapping at his toes.

“It’s too damn hot,” Sebastian had complained, peeling his shirt away. The sun blazed, burningly bright, the waves were a steady lure, and the wind was warm with summer. “Why did we come here?”

“You like the beach.” Blaine stepped deeper, letting the water lick at his toes under his shorts. “Just yesterday, you asked why we were at an amusement park instead of a beach. I remember.”

“Mankind invented air conditioning for a reason,” Sebastian groused, lounging on a towel on the sand. Blaine didn’t take a second glance at his defined abs. 

“You like the beach,” Blaine repeated. “I remember what you said.”

“And what did I say?”

Blaine closed his eyes, the water rising to lap at his ankles, the insides of his calves. “‘At least there’s the sea breeze,’” he quoted in a passable imitation of Sebastian’s drawl. He couldn’t help the smirk. “‘And cute boys walking around without shirts.’”

Sebastian leaned back against his arms, smirking back at Blaine. “I see a problem with that.”

Blaine grinned back. “Oh?”

“The only cute boy I see is still wearing a shirt.”

“You could change that.”

Sebastian stood, all long limbs, and stalked forward. Blaine stepped back, further into the ocean, his feet sinking in the damp sand as Sebastian reached forward, caught the hem of his shirt with the tips of his fingers.

“Sebastian,” Blaine said, tilting his face up.

Sebastian’s gaze was inscrutable as he stared down. The water lapped at the back of Blaine’s knees, cold, and Blaine was frozen.

“Sebastian,” Blaine repeated, and his voice sounded unrecognizable to his own ears.

“Blaine,” he said, finally. He let go, and another wave swelled, splashed frigid against the back of Blaine’s knees, against the front of Sebastian’s calves. Instead, his fingers touched, tentatively, at Blaine’s hip, traveled up to catch at Blaine’s ribs.

He shivered.

“Blaine,” Sebastian repeated, pressing his forehead against Blaine’s. He inhaled, slowly, and then exhaled, his breath warm against Blaine’s cheeks. 

Blaine closed his eyes. 

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” the voice murmured, softly. His hand was cool on Blaine’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

He turned into the hand. “Sebastian?”

“Here,” he pressed a mug into Blaine’s hands, and he sipped it—honey lemon water, the steam wafting up into his nose. “You really are sick, aren’t you?”

“’s just a cold.”

“I know.” Warm lips replaced the hand, a fleeting brush. “Go back to sleep.”

“Sebastian,” Blaine whispered, again.

 

* * *

 

The dragon’s tiny scales were pearly and iridescent, cutting tiny crescents into the callouses of Blaine’s bare feet as he curled his toes to keep his grip. It coiled, lithe and sinuous, and Blaine tipped as if he were about to fall off.

“You aren’t dead,” the dragon said. “Yet here you are, standing on my back.”

“I can get off,” Blaine offered, looking around. The coils spread in concentric circles, the dragon more vast than the eye could see. 

It laughed, a rumble that sent quakes under his feet. “Aren’t you a funny one,” the dragon said. It beamed with very clean, very bright teeth. “Here for your husband, are you?”

Blaine’s fingers twitched.

“Don’t look so surprised,” it said, curling tighter. Blaine balanced precariously on the coils. “You’ve been wandering around for a while.”

“Do you know where he is?”

The dragon ignored his question. “Why do you want to find him, Blaine Smythe?”

“He’s my husband.”

“You’ve never met him.” Before him, the snout twitched, the whiskers resolved themselves into long tendrils, and the eyes gleamed a familiar green. “But you do know duty, don’t you? You burn incense and leave offerings, the most dutiful Smythe spouse to cross the threshold. So here’s a better question.”

Blaine shook his head.

But the dragon persisted. “Why did you marry him?”

 

* * *

 

Blaine woke to the pinched sensation of an overly full bladder. For a moment, he laid in bed, lethargy tethering him to the lumpy mattress, before needs took over and he stumbled out. He peered into the mirror as he washed his hands, his hair disheveled, his eyes bright, his mouth pressed tightly with exhaustion and something else—

He shook his head, returning to his room. Wes had pinched off the incense instead of letting it burn down overnight, had left a pear on the cabinet top and sorted through Blaine’s notebooks that he had dropped in a haphazard pile on the floor just inside the door. He picked his way back to his bed, only to pause, halfway through levering himself under the covers.

_You didn’t do it for me._

His breath hitched.

_Even if it means marrying me._

His fingers flexed, involuntarily. His chest tightened, and he found himself sliding out of bed, found himself stumbling to the shrine, found himself fumbling for the matches he kept in one of the many drawers of the cabinet.

 _Why did you marry him?_ The dragon had asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” he whispered, as the smoke drifted into the air. He sniffled, the familiar scent cutting through the phlegm in his throat, the tightness in his sinuses. “It doesn’t matter. I married him. I _married you_. I—”

_You didn’t do it for me._

Blaine shook his head. “Is this why you left?” His fingers clenched, leaving tiny crescents in his palms to match the ones along the soles of his feet. “Is this why you left me?”

There was, as usual, no reply. 

“I wanted to try. Isn’t that enough?”

 

* * *

 

Blaine was recovered enough to attend fifth period. He fumbled his way into the Dalton Academy slacks and button up, but stared at the blazer with bleary exhaustion before he forwent it and pulled on one of his many navy cardigans on instead.

“This is pretty casual,” Thad said, pinching at the fabric as they mingled outside the classroom, waiting for the previous class to finish up and leave. “Are you sure you’re feeling better?”

Blaine nodded. “As long as I don’t have to talk,” he rasped and then sipped his water and unwrapped another cough drop.

“This is a terrible idea,” Nick said, worriedly. “Blaine, you really should go back to bed.”

Blaine shook his head. He had no desire to go back to bed where he might dream of the dead.

He ignored the other sophomores looking at each other despairingly. Finally, Jeff said, “You’ll get the rest of us sick.”

Blaine shook his head. “You aren’t contagious after you start showing symptoms.”

“Is that true?” Nick demanded, turning to Thad.

“Why are you asking me?” Thad raised an eyebrow. “Jeff’s the one who’s good at science.”

“You’re good at biology!”

“Wes would know,” Jeff offered, phone already in hand. 

Blaine managed, through his lethargy, to cover Jeff’s phone with his hand. “Don’t text Wes.”

“Oh no,” Nick began.

Thad shook his head.

Jeff stared at Blaine’s hand miserably, clearly not convinced about Blaine’s contagiousness, or lack thereof. 

Blaine tried. “He has class?” 

“So do we,” Thad said, as the door swung open and the previous period spilled out. “Together. In this small classroom. With questionable ventilation.” He thought for a moment, before declaring, “Also, Regionals is in a month. We can’t have all of us getting sick.”

Blaine blinked. “I’m not contagious,” he offered, and then coughed.

In unison, the other three took a step back. Blaine took a moment to admire how in-sync they had gotten, after a year and a half of performing together. He didn’t have any longer than a moment, since that was when Mr. Ross peered out the door and jerked his head towards the classroom. “What are you boys waiting for?” he asked.

Blaine started towards the classroom.

“Not you, Mr. Smythe.” He handed Blaine a slip of paper, which was a hall pass to the nurse’s office. “We’ll see you next week. Mr. Harwood and Mr. Sterling will be responsible for catching you up.”

“Oh thank god,” Thad muttered.

Blaine clutched it, a little bewilderingly. “But I’m not contagious anymore,” he managed through the lump of phlegm in his throat.

“And I’d like to keep it that way,” Mr. Ross replied. “We will see you next week.”

 

* * *

 

The dragon said, “Well?” and Blaine turned away.

 

* * *

 

Blaine spent the weekend in the library, trying to catch up in all of the classes he had missed. Thad had made a photocopy of all of his notes, and Blaine spent a good hour transferring the content from the sheaf of paper into his own notebooks. One of the Warbler freshmen, Adrien, was in his French class and was happy to hand over a copy of his own, scrawled notes. Blaine was an hour into his studying, having finished transferring Adrien’s notes and the first page of his French homework when he heard a throat being cleared.

Blaine looked up, an admonishment of silence on the tip of his tongue, and saw Kurt.

“Hey,” Kurt said, both hands wrapped around the strap of his messenger bag. He wasn’t in his uniform, which wasn’t too odd considering it was the weekend. “How are you feeling?”

“Kurt,” Blaine said. “Hey.” He glanced at the pile of books and binders on the table, trying to find the spot with the least clutter to clear off. “Give me a second, I’ll move my stuff.”

“That’s fine,” Kurt said. “I was heading home for the weekend, and thought I’d say bye.”

“Oh.” Blaine smiled. “That’s right. You must miss your friends a lot.”

Kurt nodded. “I do.” He paused. “You should come meet them.”

Blaine laughed incredulously. “What?”

Kurt nodded, more rapidly. “Yes. I’m sure you’d get along with everybody. I mean, you met Mercedes already, and Rachel at Sectionals, and the boys too. You’ve really met everybody, and they’ve all liked you. I’m sure if you spent some more time with them, you’d all get along.”

Blaine gaped. “I have homework,” he said.

“Oh.” Kurt looked at the stacks of books that Blaine had spread across the table. “I’m sure it can wait,” he said.

“I missed three days of classes,” Blaine said, slowly. The third day really hadn’t been necessary, but Wes had emailed all of his teachers, so when he had showed up to English, Ms. Lawson had intercepted him before he could make it to his seat and gotten Trent to escort him back to his dorm. He had tried again after lunch, only for Mr. Tao to bar him from the pre-calculus classroom. He hadn’t bothered to test Madame Dubois; Wes was nothing if not thorough. 

Kurt chewed his lip. “Well, you should hang out with us another time.”

“Sure.” Blaine smiled up at Kurt. “Maybe when I’ve caught up.”

Kurt smiled back.

“Have a safe drive,” Blaine said, bending over his books again. He had barely finished answering another question when he felt somebody hovering over his shoulder. “Did you—Wes.”

Wes frowned back, impeccably dressed in his uniform despite it being a weekend, books piled on his arms. “Blaine. What are you doing out of bed?”

“I feel fine,” Blaine said, immediately, swallowing down the cough that was threatening to bubble out of his throat.

“Alright,” Wes said, suspiciously. “We’ve been preparing _Bills_ , and I wanted to hear how it sounds next week. If you’re truly feeling better…”

“I am,” Blaine said.

“Then we’ll hear how you sound.” He eyed the pile on the table, shrugged, and sat down, shifting Blaine’s books under his watchful eye. “French?”

Blaine nodded.

“Adrien sent you the notes?”

Blaine nodded, again.

Wes made an agreeable noise in the back of his throat. He set his laptop onto the table and began typing away, looking intent on finishing as much as his work as he could.

Blaine bent his head over his homework. They worked in steady silence, the only sound the rustling of Blaine’s books and the steady typing of Wes’s keyboard. Blaine finished French, blew his nose, and moved onto English. As noon rolled around, Wes closed his laptop with a snap, waited until Blaine had looked up, and asked, “Lunch?”

He hadn’t had much of an appetite for the past week, but he was feeling the beginnings of a gnawing hunger now. “Okay,” he agreed, and began packing up his books. 

“We’ll go off-campus,” Wes said. “I’ll drive.”

Blaine blinked.

“I’ll see you at the parking lot in fifteen minutes.” He rolled his shoulders. “Let me change.”

Blaine nodded.

They got lunch in a small café in downtown Westerville, both of them dressed down in soft sweaters and dark jeans. Blaine got soup and a salad and ignored the too-knowing look in Wes’ eyes as he inhaled the steam and nibbled on the salad. Wes updated Blaine on the latest rehearsal news; Blaine’s absence had been missed, Freshman tenor Brian had lost his voice after spending the previous day practicing his part for too long, and with both Brian and Blaine out, rehearsal on Friday had been particularly unproductive.

Wes said, “David’s pretty worried about Regionals.”

Blaine stuck his nose down his mug, trying to look like he was deeply interested in his ginger tea. He inhaled, deeply. “We’ll be up against New Directions again, right?”

“Probably.”

“They were pretty good,” Blaine agreed. “Kurt probably could tell us about them?” Wes made a vaguely thoughtful sound, but Blaine shook his head. “Or it might be weird for him, since they were his teammates until just recently.”

Wes made a noncommittal sound, stirring his tea.

“Have you figured out the set list yet?”

Wes leaned back in his chair. “We’ll see how you sound on Monday.”

Blaine inhaled the steam a little more. Rehearsal was in the afternoon. That left him at least 48 hours to clear the last of the mucus from his respiratory system. “Okay,” he said. “Can we stop by the drug store?”

“I thought you were better,” Wes said pointedly.

“Nothing like a little pharmaceutical insurance,” Blaine muttered back, before downing the tea. It scalded his throat a little on the way down, but Blaine figured that burning out the mucus was probably worth the extra abrasion on his throat.

 

* * *

 

He stood on the precipice, empty-handed, the length of the dragon coiled in waves before him. There was no wind, no sun, nothing but empty blankness and the bright green eyes as it waited.

Blaine opened his mouth, closed it, and stepped back.

He fell, he always fell, he was always falling.

 

* * *

 

Blaine was in the library with the other sophomores, his sinuses mostly cleared, his throat tingling a little from the copious amounts of ginger tea he had consumed, reading Jeff’s English essay as they passed them in a circle for Sunday Night Editing Frenzy. He was in the middle of scrawling large question marks in green ink all over Jeff’s conclusion paragraph when he spotted Kurt, still bundled in his coat, clearing his throat.

“Hey!” Blaine mustered a grin. He waved the pen in a greeting. “Want to join us? It’s Sunday Night Editing Frenzy.”

“Nobody actually calls it that,” Thad grumbled, rolling his eyes as he covered Trent’s essay in red.

“I do,” Trent protested, over Beat’s essay.

“So do I,” Beat said, agreeably.

“Sunday Night Editing Frenzy?” Kurt echoed.

Blaine ignored the disdain; Jeff had come up with the name last year, one month before Regionals. Tired from the long rehearsals, they had gathered in the library after rehearsal. Nick had stared bleakly at his essay before declaring that he couldn’t even catch typos anymore, he had stared at the essay for so long. Before long, they had started trading essays. Eventually, it had codified to Sunday Night Editing Frenzy—they met on Sundays the weekend before an essay was due, sat around in a circle with their phones in the center of the table, and passed their essays around until they came back to their original owner. The first person to cave and pick up their cell paid for their next off-campus meal.

Nick paid for dinner most of the time.

Blaine had just finished explaining when Jeff, on Blaine’s left, handed him Nick’s essay. Blaine hurriedly finished his comments before sliding Jeff’s essay to Beat.

Kurt said, tersely, “Oh.”

“The juniors have their own study circle,” Thad offered, now holding Beat’s essay. “You could probably join them. Trent ditches us for them when we work on chem labs, since he’s in physics with most of them. You should still have English and whatnot with them even if you aren’t in physics.”

“You aren’t?” Blaine asked.

Kurt sniffed. “I don’t see why I’d need to know any of that.”

“Physics?” Trent asked. 

Kurt waved a hand. “Any of that math and science stuff.”

Trent blinked. “It’s useful?”

Beat made a thoughtful drumroll as he started on Jeff’s essay.

Kurt cleared his throat again. “Blaine,” he said, “I told my McKinley friends about you. They asked you to get better soon.”

Blaine blinked, trying to figure out what Kurt could have said. That he had a cold? 

“Also, you should join us for coffee next week.”

Blaine blinked, again. “Sure.” He blinked at Nick, who was staring at him particularly intently. “Did you guys want to join?”

“I think we’re all busy,” Jeff said, frowning. “Especially since you’re recovering from a cold.”

Nick said, slowly, “Coffee?”

Blaine smiled helplessly. “Let me know what the plan is?”

Kurt beamed. “Sure!” He fluttered his fingers. “I’ll see you at rehearsal tomorrow.”

As Kurt left, Nick slapped Trent’s essay onto the table. “What was that about, Blaine Smythe?”

Blaine shrugged. “He wants me to meet his friends?”

“You’re an idiot,” Thad said, rolling his eyes.

“What?”

“He’s interested in you?” Jeff pointed out. “And you just agreed to go to coffee with him?”

“It could be friendly,” Trent offered. “You guys could be making this a bigger deal than it is.”

“No way,” Nick declared. He pointed, dramatically. “Blaine Smythe—”

Beat said, “We’re in a library.”

More quietly, Nick said, “Blaine Smythe, you explain yourself.”

Blaine said, a little helplessly, “I think he’s lonely.” Nick didn’t look convinced. “He’s a junior, but he doesn’t seem to spend much time with them? He’s taking care of Pavarotti with the other freshmen, so he spends a lot of time with the freshmen, but he’s in the junior classes—”

“He’s in freshman biology,” Thad interrupted. He furrowed his brow, trying to recall Kurt’s schedule even as his fingers twitched towards his phone. “Algebra?”

“Juniors take calculus,” Jeff pointed out.

“He’s into the arts,” Blaine defended. “And public school—”

“He’s in my French class,” Trent offered, who was in sophomore French. “He’s not bad at that.”

“So he doesn’t have a lot of classes with people.” Blaine spread his hands. “He’s a Warbler. Shouldn’t we be trying to make him feel comfortable with us?”

“We can talk about it after we finish editing essays,” Thad said decisively. “Including your questionable decisions to go to coffee with boys who have crushes on you.”

“He’s just lonely,” Blaine repeated. “I’m gay and out—”

“No kidding,” Nick muttered. Jeff kicked him as he muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “ _and married_.”

“And he’s out of the closet too. If I can meet his friends and help him feel more comfortable, shouldn’t I?”

_You didn’t do it for me._

Blaine flinched.

Thad stared at him, his expression eerily like Wes’. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Essays.”

In a well-coordinated unit, they bent their heads over their essays. They didn’t speak of Kurt or Blaine’s impending coffee date, and for that, Blaine was grateful.

 

* * *

 

Sebastian had slid the mug across the table, his eyes never leaving Blaine’s. The aroma was fragrant, and when Blaine brought the cup to his lips, he could taste cinnamon.

“Did you make this for me?” Blaine let the coffee—the exact temperature he preferred—linger on the tip of his tongue.

“This is your dream,” Sebastian had replied, bringing his own cup up, his gaze still, unwavering: steadily fixed on Blaine. They had been just settling into the routine of dates, of meeting when Blaine slept and learning each other’s coffee orders, of long walks on the beach under setting suns that never crossed over the horizon, of lazy mornings and late nights lying side-by-side, the tips of their fingers barely touching.

Blaine had smiled down into his coffee, had inhaled the fragrant steam, had murmured, “Still.”

The dreams had continued, sometimes familiar, always present, a perpetual cycle of Sebastian. Blaine slept and opened his eyes to his husband. He had stopped dreaming of anything else.

Sebastian touched his wrist, his fingers so light on Blaine’s pulse, and when Blaine finally turned, nobody was there.

 

* * *

 

The Lima Beam was crowded, for a Tuesday evening. Blaine lingered as Kurt and his friends exchanged effusive hugs and greetings, putting his order in and letting the familiar aroma of coffee lull him into a sedate peace. The sound of ceramic clattering in the back, the warmth of the coffee, the smell of freshly ground beans were familiar in an unsettling memory.

Blaine adjusted his coat, a prickling unlike sweat crawling along the back of his neck.

Wes had been pleased enough by Blaine’s performance on Monday—all four repetitions, because it was rehearsal after all—of _Bills_ to cut Tuesday rehearsal short. Soon after it had been let out, Blaine had found himself seated in the passenger seat of Kurt’s car as they made the drive from Westerville to Lima, still in their uniforms. Kurt had thanked him, put in a mix tape of showtunes into his tape deck, and spent most of the two hour drive going through an eclectic collection of famous musicals. Blaine had joined in on a few of them, dozing in between occasional contributions. 

They sat, the girls bemoaning the state of their football team, and Blaine tried, as best he could, to keep up with the conversation. After years of watching football with his father, with Cooper, he had accumulated more than enough knowledge to navigate the intricacies of high school football regulations. Rachel and Mercedes turned contemplative looks upon each other, and he agreed to go to a football game, smiling amiably as Kurt explained how he enjoyed scarves.

They returned to Dalton late, stopping to grab dinner at a diner along the road back. Kurt was effusive, chattering about his old school, and Blaine found it easy to smile and follow the steady stream of conversation, sipping his soup and letting the warmth sooth the residual itch in his throat. He hesitated before ordering a to-go cup of coffee, sipping it once or twice, but mostly letting the warmth seep into his hands.

As they pulled into the Dalton parking lot, Kurt asked, “Aren’t you going to drink that?”

Blaine stared down at the now-lukewarm coffee. “I got it for Sebastian,” he admitted. It hadn’t been very good, and he had spent the rest of the car ride wondering what Sebastian would say, if he would even show up.

Kurt stiffened. “Your husband,” he said, slowly.

Blaine nodded, rolling the cardboard cup in his palms. It would be something if Sebastian showed up for mediocre coffee.

“Well,” Kurt said, tossing his head. “I hope he enjoys it.”

Blaine nodded, again.

“I’ll let you know about the football game.”

“Yeah,” Blaine agreed. He took a deep breath of January chill. It numbed his lungs, enough to dampen the last residual cough still lingering in his throat. “Sure. This weekend, right?”

“Yes. You’re coming, aren’t you?” He leaned forward. “You wouldn’t make me sit through an entire football game on my own, Blaine.”

Blaine’s voice sounded distant, not his own. The cup was heavy, suddenly too heavy, his scarf constricting, his blazer tight against his shoulders. The air was cold against his cheeks.

Very quietly, he said, “I made a commitment.”

 

* * *

 

The hallways of Dalton were dark and quiet as Blaine snuck back in on Saturday night. Curfew was lax on the weekends, but there were still expectations, and Blaine had never been one to flaunt them. He could have gone home—to his parents—and it would have been a shorter drive, but as he sat behind the wheel, he found himself turning towards Westerville, letting the empty highway lull the pounding of his heart into something more tempered.

Football, Blaine thought. Public school.

St. Ivers hadn’t had a football team—or rather, not one worth speaking of. They had intermural teams, baseball and basketball and other sports, and Blaine had joined a few teams, briefly. He had done a lot of things, those brief months that he was in public school.

His feet were eerily loud in the silence of the night. He passed by the ajar door for the dorm shrine, dim light spilling out, casting long shadows from his feet—

“You’re back late.”

Blaine reeled back.

Wes stepped out, dressed in a soft sweatshirt and sweatpants. He was wearing his glasses, and his mouth was drawn into what would have been a frown of consternation on anybody else.

Blaine said, “Wes.”

Wes opened the door wider, tilting his head in. Blaine followed Wes into dorm shrine, the last of the incense burning down, the window cracked to let in fresh air. Wes picked up a book, dog-eared the page, and set it down again.

“Were you waiting up?” Blaine asked.

“Where were you?” Wes asked, ignoring Blaine’s question.

Blaine shrugged.

“I know Thad wanted to hold an extra rehearsal for you and Brian, since the two of you missed rehearsals last week.”

“I was out.” His fingers tightened around his messenger bag.

Wes made a vaguely affirmative noise. “We worked with Brian,” he said, amiably, his bag turned as he wiped down a ceramic dish on the shrine. “He got his part pretty quickly; he’ll be an asset next year.”

Blaine said, “I had already made plans. I made a promise.”

“At coffee in Lima.”

Blaine whispered, “My time is my own.”

Wes turned. “Did you want to go to coffee?”

Blaine blinked.

“Did you want to go to a high school football game?”

“I like football,” Blaine said, weakly. His fingers tightened on the strap of his bag; he wasn’t sure what would happen if he let go.

“Did you have fun?”

It had been cold, the football had been mediocre, the half-time show had been enjoyable. Kurt had talked about his friends, his old classmates, his step-brother Finn, his old glee club—

“It was fine,” Blaine said.

Wes took off his glasses, scrubbing them on his sweater before he slid them back on again. Blaine looked away.

Wes said, “What did you want to do?”

Blaine said, “I’m trying to be a good friend.” He took a deep breath. “I’m trying to do what you did for me.”

Wes blinked, once.

“You were there,” Blaine said. His fingers loosened on the bag. “Last year, you were there. I want to help Kurt the way you helped me.”

“Blaine,” Wes began.

Blaine inhaled, familiar agarwood incense filling his lungs. He didn’t cough, not anymore, fully recovered from his cold. “Can I go?” He shifted his bag. “It’s late. I’m going to get some rest.”

He nodded.

Blaine said, “Good night.”

“Sleep well,” Wes replied.

 

* * *

 

The dragon laid in loose coils, its breath warm, its gaze intent. “Did you come here because you wanted to find him?”

Blaine stared back.

“Or did you come here so you could say you tried?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ryjjte7psxco1e/btwa_chapter7.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/170670174116/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew-chapter-7)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for explicit description of a panic attack.

That evening, that August, in that bedroom that Sebastian had grown up in Paris, Blaine had dreamed. Sebastian had appeared, the way he always did; this time he lounged in bed next to Blaine as he opened his eyes to Paris, the window open to let in the balmy summer breeze. Sebastian had been reading a book, one of the many paperbacks on his Parisian bedroom’s bookshelf, and he had looked down when Blaine had stirred, shifting seamlessly from awake to asleep to awake again.

Blaine had blinked, taking in the sun dappling across the freckles along Sebastian’s cheekbones, the hair gleaming golden, the curve of his lips as he noticed Blaine and smiled.

“Hey,” Sebastian said. 

Blaine let himself smile back. “Hey,” he whispered.

Sebastian leaned back against the headboard, sliding a finger between the pages to keep his place. He grinned, and Blaine watched his lips part, watched his eyes crinkle, watched—

“Hey,” he whispered again.

“Took your time.” Sebastian put the book down on the bedside table. “And here I thought you loved me, Husband.”

Blaine’s breath hitched.

Steadily, sound filtered in: the rustling of leaves outside, the rumble of cars, the murmur of voices as they bustled to and fro. If Blaine got up and looked outside, he would see a faceless crowd, a mass that would never resolve until after he woke up. If Blaine got up—

 

* * *

 

There was a nervous energy thrumming through Dalton as Valentine’s Day approached. Thad, usually the most attentive out of the sophomore Warblers, had taken to ignoring the teachers as he texted furtively under the desk, relying on Blaine to nudge him when he seemed too distracted lest their teachers notice. Wes dismissed rehearsal early twice when his normally silent phone vibrated with an incoming call. David didn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t making last-minute plans, texting his girlfriend and not even looking apologetic when Wes glared.

It almost rivaled the Magpie Festival.

It was easy for Blaine to get swept up in it, having somehow become a bastion of reliability as the others fumbled their way through new and changing relationships. His status as a married man of over a year gave him a credibility that he had never had, first as a gay boy, then as the boy who married his dead betrothed.

Blaine helpfully kicked Thad in the ankle when Mr. Ross glanced over.

Thad’s mouth twisted into a monstrous grimace as he dropped his phone in his lap and attempted to look interested in electrochemistry.

“You seem a little distracted,” Nick offered as they gathered their books and began to make their way to rehearsal. “Hot date on Tuesday?”

“He has a betrothed,” Jeff reminded Nick.

Nick rolled his eyes. “Hot date on Tuesday with your betrothed?”

Thad grimaced, checking his phone again. “I don’t know,” he admitted, typing another reply before sliding his phone into his pocket. 

“How can you not know?” Nick paused to stare incredulously.

“First, she’s fourteen,” Thad replied drily.

“Warm date?” Nick offered.

“She’s a freshman!”

“Blaine,” Jeff said unhelpfully, “got married when he was a freshman.”

“Blaine’s husband was dead,” Thad snapped, before saying, “no offense, Blaine.”

Blaine slid his hands into his pockets. “Blaine would really like to not be part of this conversation,” he tried, as they neared the senior commons.

“What conversation?” Trent asked, coming in from the other side of the hall. “Are we talking about Blaine’s love life again?”

Jeff said, “A little. Mostly we were talking about Thad’s lack of love life.”

“I have a betrothed!”

“She’s fourteen,” Jeff explained, to Trent. “A freshman at Crawford.”

“I didn’t say she went to Crawford.”

“Does she?” Blaine asked, half curious and half eager to change the conversation back to Thad.

Thad sighed. “Yes.”

Trent asked, thankfully to Thad, “Are you doing anything for Valentine’s day?”

Thad threw his hands up in the air. “Who knows? We’ve been betrothed less than a year. She thinks Justin Bieber is cute.”

Trent very kindly did not snicker. “Ouch.”

Jeff stifled a smirk behind a hand. “You might as well give up, if you’re going up against Justin Bieber for her affections.”

“You should do something grand to win her over,” Nick suggested. “Buy a thousand roses and fill her dorm with them.”

“I don’t think they have dorms at Crawford,” Jeff said, thoughtfully.

Thad stared. “That’s your objection?” Jeff shrugged, mouthing _Bieber_ back. Thad rolled his eyes.

“You could bake her a cake,” Trent offered. “That would be nice.”

Thad shook his head. “Do you really think anything I baked would turn out any good?”

“Sing,” Blaine said, suddenly, Sebastian’s hands around his as he recalled that dream in Paris Disneyland. He said, “You could sing her a song.”

“You’re asking me to compete against a top 20 artist,” Thad said firmly, pushing the door open. “And rehearsal is starting.”

Blaine frowned, but he said nothing as he took his seat. 

 

* * *

 

Seemingly overnight, the Dalton student supply store had acquired a plethora of Valentine’s Day themed decorations. Blaine was contemplating a heart-decorated mug in Dalton colors and wondering if it would look out of place if he offered Sebastian coffee in it on Valentine’s day. Last year, Valentine’s Day had overlapped with the lunar new year; they had fought and Blaine had fallen asleep and woken up to silence. This year—

“Blaine?”

Blaine turned, recognizing the voice. “Kurt,” he greeted. He set the cup down. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, airily, waving a hand in the air. “Classes. Rehearsal. Practicing my ‘Ooh’s’ and ‘ah’s’.” He sniffed, a little scornful, picking up a heart-shaped cushion, Dalton red edged with navy lace. “Really? How tacky can you get?”

Blaine didn’t look at the mug. “I like Valentine’s Day.” He closed his eyes, thought of Sebastian, thought of that April morning, kneeling on cold stone. “I like the idea of putting yourself on the line for somebody you—”

_And here I thought you loved me—_

Blaine shook his head. “I’ve got a question for you,” he concluded.

“Shoot.”

“Do you think it’s too much to sing to somebody on Valentine’s Day?”

Kurt blinked, once, twice, before he straightened. “Not at all,” he breathed.

Blaine nodded, mind spinning with plans. Crawford was only an hour north, and enough of the Warblers had cars that it wouldn’t be a hardship for them to make their way there on a Tuesday afternoon. It was short notice, but they had enough songs in their repertoire that it would only be a matter of polishing one up.

He nodded, determined. “Thanks.” He clapped Kurt on the shoulder, unable to help the giddy grin. “I’ll get you a coffee or something, alright? Nonfat mocha, right?”

“You know my coffee order?”

Blaine laughed. “Of course I do.” He waved absently over his shoulder as he headed out the store and towards the music theory classroom. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

 

* * *

 

 _You do know duty, don’t you_ , the dragon had said. _You burn incense and leave offerings. The most dutiful Smythe spouse to cross the threshold._

Blaine gasped. His arm was pinned under him, his knees pressed into his chest, the blankets tousled tightly around his torso. He breathed deeply, one shuddering breath after another until his heart settled into a steady murmur, a quiet patter inside his ribs, a silent reminder of time still ticking to its inevitable conclusion.

He peeled the blankets back.

_Why did you marry him?_

He shivered in the late night chill, finding a sweater and pulling it on. His shoulder felt stiff, his chest felt tender, his knee ached in the cold. He pulled it on and ignored the pain, stumbling towards the shrine.

_Did you come here because you wanted to find him?_

His fingers closed over empty air.

He took a deep breath, bent over the cabinet drawer, and pulled out a fresh stick of incense, lighting the agarwood and inhaling deeply. His breathing settled into the familiar pattern of inhaling through his nose—rich agarwood, familiar—and then exhaling in a steady stream from his mouth. Over and over, as the spark smoldered on the tip of the incense, making its steady way down towards Blaine’s hands.

He watched the tiny flame flicker.

 _You always want to do the right thing_ , Sebastian had said.

“I wanted to,” Blaine whispered back. “I wanted to find you. I wanted to—”

_Or did you come here so you could say you tried?_

Blaine’s fingers tightened on the incense.

He didn’t say anything, just watched the stick burn and burn until he fell asleep, still kneeling on the floor.

 

* * *

 

Thad stormed up to him. “You mock us, _sir_.”

Blaine spread his hands. “We need all the rehearsal opportunities we can get. And Crawford would probably appreciate it.”

Thad glanced around, the Warblers sorting themselves into cars in organized chaos. Thad had, reluctantly, made a carpool chart, but most people were ignoring it in favor of shuffling the freshmen around to try avoid having all three of them in their car. Wes was looking increasingly exasperated as he stood outside his own car, trying to ensure that none of the juniors stuffed one of said freshmen in a trunk.

Thad grabbed him by the edge of his blazer, tugged him away, and hissed, “You said that I was in love with Amelia.”

Blaine blinked. “Well…”

“Is this revenge for the betting pool?”

Blaine shook his head. “I’m over the betting pool.”

Thad hissed, “Seriously, Blaine. What were you thinking?” He gestured, just as Jason very loudly threatened to throw freshman Brian into his trunk. There was an ominous scuffle as he recruited several of the other juniors to help.

Blaine said, weakly, “Well I didn’t think that Jason would throw Brian in a trunk,” as Wes, just as loudly, told Jason to get into his damn car and leave Brian alone.

“Not that.” Thad heaved a massive sigh. “This. This, singing thing.” Brian joined the other freshmen in Joe’s SUV. Joe’s protests were drowned out by David’s rather loud reminder of his December SAT scheduling mishap.

Blaine said, “I—”

“Thad!” Wes shouted. “You’re with me. Get over here.”

Thad hesitated.

“Thad Harwood!”

“Coming!” He shouted back. To Blaine, he said, “Seriously, Blaine, if this goes wrong at all,” before storming to Wes’ car.

Blaine grimaced as he turned to his own car. Kurt, Nick, and Jeff were already standing there waiting. “So,” he said. “Shall we go serenade Amelia?”

“I thought we were serenading all of the Crawford girls,” Jeff drawled.

Blaine grinned sheepishly at Kurt, who was frowning and wouldn’t meet his eyes. He unlocked the doors and slid in, even as the other cars began to pull out of the student parking lot. “Well, Amelia’s a Crawford girl.”

 

* * *

 

It did not go well.

“Well,” Nick said, rather cheerfully. “It’s good to know that we’re all banned from Gap forever.”

Blaine made a vaguely miserable noise in the back of his throat.

“Cheer up.” Jeff patted Blaine on the back encouragingly. “Amelia probably doesn’t hate Thad.”

“This is awful,” Blaine moaned into his hands, and tried to forget that she had almost gotten crushed by a mannequin. He mumbled something to that effect.

“But she didn’t!” Kurt exclaimed from his seat next to Blaine. He crossed a leg over the other and clapped with the tips of his gloved fingers. “And I’m sure she loved it.”

Blaine shook his head. “Did you see her face?” He waved. “Also, banned from Gap forever.”

“Look on the bright side, we’re only banned from this one,” Nick pointed out, a little too cheerfully. “We’re probably still safe to go into all of the Gaps in Columbus. Unless they hang signs up in the windows. ‘Warning: have you seen these teens? Prone to singing and dancing on furniture. Do not let into the store.’”

“Nick,” Jeff said. “You aren’t helping.”

Blaine shook his head.

“It’s probably not that bad,” Kurt offered. “I mean, who wouldn’t love being sung to? I, for one, would love if a cute boy came up to me and serenaded me.” He glanced at Nick and Jeff, and then at Blaine. “Anyone?”

“Just.” Blaine waved his hand, not looking up. “Let’s just.” He inhaled as a shadow stepped into his field of view. He sighed.

Thad glared down at him.

“Thad,” he began.

“Blaine,” he snapped. “I’m going to be really polite, and ask to talk in private.”

Kurt craned his head.

Blaine nodded. He stood up, said, “I’ll be back soon, guys,” and followed Thad out into the parking lot, each step achingly slow as they left earshot. The trek was excruciatingly long; the journey as short as each breath against his ribs.

Hesitantly, he began, “Is Amelia alright?”

“Amelia,” Thad snapped, whirling, “is unhurt if you don’t count public humiliation.”

“Oh.” He grimaced. “Oh.”

“And who was it that thought this was a good idea?”

“The council,” Blaine began. He took a deep breath, and his ribs expanded tightly. “The council agreed.”

“We agreed to performing at Crawford! Not to… hunting down my betrothed when she was out with her friends and knocking a mannequin over her.”

“That was an accident.”

Thad shook his head. “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t decided to meddle.”

Blaine took a quiet breath, wrapping an arm around his chest. “At least she isn’t hurt.”

“She’s a freshman! She’s fourteen and she—”

Thad’s hand raised, fingers clutched. Blaine stared back, suddenly very calm. He watched the fingers tighten, loosen, the hand fall to the side. 

“She’ll be fine,” Blaine said, his voice sounding thin, even in his ears. His ribs tensed underneath his forearm. “It’ll all be fine.”

“No! Blaine,” Thad shouted, “You don’t just get to meddle in my life!”

He shook his head.

Thad shook his head. “No. Don’t. I swear, if you hadn’t come up with that stupid idea of singing in public.”

Thad’s hand clenched, loosened, his shoulders shook.

“You and your grand gestures.”

Thad swung an arm out, sharp, fast, the years of lacrosse giving him strength. He drew it in. His hand clenched, again, into a fist.

“Just because you’ll never have a real relationship doesn’t mean you get to stick your nose in mine!”

Blaine inhaled, and his ribs pressed against his arm. He followed them back in as he exhaled, his fingers tightening in his coat. Thad was a friend.

“Shit,” Thad hissed. He turned away, scrubbing at his face. “Look, Blaine.”

“Okay,” Blaine said.

“No. It’s. Damnit. I’m just, fucking—”

“It’s okay,” Blaine said. “Thad.”

He shook his head.

“It’s fine,” Blaine repeated.

“I’m just pissed, okay?”

Blaine shrugged. “Let’s get back to Dalton,” he said. “Do you need a ride?”

“I’m going back with Wes.” 

“Okay.” 

He said, “Blaine, look.”

Blaine breathed. “It’s fine, Thad. It’ll be fine.” He turned and went back to the others. He kept his arm wrapped around his chest, and said it was from the winter chill. He turned up the thermostat the entire ride back, his right hand curling into an empty fist in his lap, his leg trembling against the pedals.

“Was Thad mad?” Kurt whispered.

“It’s fine,” Blaine said. “It’s fine.”

 

* * *

 

 _You pledge yourself to chastity_ , Sebastian had said. _You’ll live alone. You’ll adopt a child and it’ll never be yours_.

Blaine knelt before the shrine, incense clasped loosely in his hands. His knee ached, his breathing came in short gasps, and he hunched, curling himself over the flickering ember as he couldn’t look away.

_You’re promised to a ghost. You’ll be haunted by memory. You’ll have to pretend that you don’t resent what your life’s become, raising a stranger’s kid as your own._

“Stop,” Blaine mouthed. “Stop.”

But, Sebastian’s voice was relentless. _Do you even know what these marriages entail?_

“Of course I do.” Blaine’s fingers curled, loosened, curled again. His room reeked of agarwood. “Of course I do. I married you.”

His knee ached, pressed against the stubble of the rough dorm carpet, even through the wool slacks. His knee ached, and still he knelt.

“I make mistakes,” he whispered. 

Sebastian’s voice, Thad’s words: _just because you’ll never have a real relationship doesn’t mean you get to stick your nose in mine!_

Blaine closed his eyes.

But Sebastian’s voice continued in precise memory. _I didn’t want to marry you._

“Stop.” He shook his head. “Stop haunting me.”

Sebastian’s voice faded away, and in the silence the dragon whispered, _why did you marry him?_

Blaine rose, set the incense in the pot, and turned away.

It twisted, long constricting coils wrapped one on top of another: around his legs, up his chest, around his throat.

_You’ve never met him. But you know duty, don’t you?_

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Blaine snapped. “The mistake would have been saying no. The mistake would have been not marrying Sebastian.”

_Why did you marry him?_

Blaine said, “I married him.” His fingers curled, one knuckle at a time, before they opened again to hang loosely at his sides. “Why can’t that be enough?”

 

* * *

 

Thad, very pointedly, did not sit with them in English class (Trent sent them an apologetic look and joined Thad at the front of the room). He ignored them during lunch, and picked a seat in the front of the classroom during pre-calculus instead of their usual cluster in the middle of the room.

Blaine bit his lip and didn’t say anything.

“Wow,” Nick whispered. “He’s really pissed.”

“We did almost murder his betrothed,” Jeff hissed back.

“It’s fine,” Blaine said, quietly. “He’s just pissed.”

“Sectionals is coming up,” Nick pointed out as they packed their things. “And you’re our lead soloist for how many songs?”

“It’s fine,” Blaine said. “Can we drop it?”

Nick flung his hands up in the air.

“Dropped,” Jeff said.

“I’ll see you at rehearsal,” Blaine said, shoving the last of his books in his bag. He glanced at Thad, who was talking to some of their classmates who were also in AP Spanish as they headed out.

“See you at rehearsal,” Jeff said. He glanced at Thad. “He’ll cool off,” he offered.

“Yeah,” Blaine said. “It’ll be fine.”

 

* * *

 

“Blaine,” Sebastian had said, the waves lapping at his feet as their toes curled in the fine sand. The sun was low, staining the sky red and gold, and when Sebastian turned, the it cast shadows upon the planes of his face. The ocean was warm, still, from the summer day, and it foamed along the tops of their feet. Sebastian studied Blaine, as if trying to read where his history had expressed itself in the curve of his mouth, in the breadth of his shoulders, in the crevasses of his bones.

Blaine had turned, meeting Sebastian’s gaze for a second before he looked away—to the rising tides as they flowed higher and higher over their feet, to the setting sun, to the breeze, stirring.

They had stood, in long silence, as the sun set, as the ocean rose, as the chill set in, until finally Sebastian reached forward and pulled Blaine back, his fingers tight around Blaine’s wrist, their feet sinking into the damp sand. Higher and higher Sebastian led him until they were beyond the reach of the tides. The sand clung to their damp feet, to their ankles, to the backs of their knees as they kicked it up.

They had run, and at the very end, Sebastian had turned. Blaine had been gasping for breath, a hand closing around his ribs in a familiar embrace. He had braced himself on his knees, and Sebastian had laughed, had asked if Blaine really couldn’t handle a little run, and Blaine—

The tide had risen, the sun had set, and Blaine had said nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

“Thanks folks,” Wes called out as Friday rehearsal ended, a whole thirty minutes early. “Have a great weekend, don’t party too hard, and tenors have mandatory Sunday evening rehearsal.” There was a collective groan from all the tenors, Blaine included. “Blaine, stay behind.”

Blaine blinked.

Thad grabbed his bag and stormed out. The rest of the Warblers followed, a little more cheerfully. Nick, Jeff, and Beat offered Blaine sympathetic grimaces, Trent made a more apologetic face, and Kurt frowned, but they left with the crowd. Blaine stared at their retreating backs, before turning back to Wes and David seated behind the council table. “He’s still pissed at me,” he concluded.

David nodded, grimly.

Wes sighed. “He’ll get over it.” 

“I dropped a mannequin on his betrothed.”

David snorted. He grinned, just a flash of white teeth. “Yeah. You did.”

Wes scowled at David. “Will you be able to work with him?”

“What?” Blaine blinked. “Thad’s the one who’s mad at me,” he began.

David coughed. “Yeah, he is.”

“Thank you, David,” Wes said loudly. “Blaine,” he continued, seriously. “Thad’s understandably upset.”

“Yeah,” Blaine agreed. “I know.”

“But you haven’t said a word in the whole week.”

Blaine froze, his breath catching against his ribs. “I must have.”

David, in a tone that implied he thought himself helpful, said, “You raised your hand when we were doing roll call today.”

He shook his head. “That doesn’t matter.”

David shook his head back. “Pretty sure it does.”

“David,” Wes said. He stood, stepped around from the table, placed his hands steadily on Blaine’s shoulders, not bearing down, just leaving them there, a steady presence. “Hey.”

Slowly, under the steady weight of Wes’ hands, Blaine straightened.

“Are you alright?”

Blaine said, “He’s really pissed at me.”

“Yeah.”

“I only wanted to help.”

Wes squeezed and let go. “Why?”

“What?”

“Why did you want to help?”

Blaine blinked. _And here I thought you loved me_ , Sebastian had said. And Blaine—

“Blaine?”

He said, “I just wanted to.”

 

* * *

 

He dreamed of dragons, sinuous, waiting, and when he woke up, the sky still gray from pre-dawn light, he did nothing but lie in bed for a long time, eyes closed, drifting on the sounds of wind and rain. When the clatter of footsteps in the hallways joined in, he found himself slipping from the covers, lighting agarwood incense, bowing and letting the smoke unfurl into the air.

He called Albert. 

“Blaine,” Albert said, sounding groggy and pleasantly surprised at the same time. “How are you doing? Uncle Alex said you had Regionals coming up soon.”

“Fine,” Blaine said, quietly. “Hi.”

There was a pause, a yawn, and Albert said, “Alright, give me a moment.” The phone went silent, and a minute later, Albert voice, slightly more chipper, said, “Alright. Blaine. How can I help you?”

His fingers tightened on the phone. He inhaled, sharply, and then said, “There was a dragon.”

Albert echoed, “A dragon?”

“In the land of the dead.” Blaine closed his eyes, opened them, and remembered the shimmering scales, cool under his bare feet, the warmth of the dragon’s breath as it huffed, the deep voice asking him:

_Why did you marry him?_

Blaine curled his knees into his chest, leaning against the wall, “I’ve been talking to it.”

“A dragon.”

Blaine nodded, said, “Yeah.” He exhaled. “What does it mean?”

Albert replied immediately, “Dragons, in dreams, mean many things.” He laughed. “But this isn’t a dream. You’ve been back in the realm of the dead.”

“Yeah.”

“A dragon,” he marveled, again. “I’ve never met one.”

“Okay.”

“What does it want?”

_You’ve never met him. But you do know duty, don’t you? You burn incense and leave offerings, the most dutiful Smythe spouse to cross the threshold._

Blaine said, quietly. “Never mind.”

“Blaine.”

Blaine shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Albert sighed. “Alright,” he said, quickly. “Don’t hang up.”

Blaine clenched his phone.

“I’m meeting Uncle Alex for dinner. Want to join? Got to be better than dorm food, right?”

Blaine mumbled, “It’s pretty good, here.”

“Come on. Whatever you want. Uncle Alex will pay.”

Blaine shook his head. “Okay.” He picked at a stray thread in his duvet cover. “In Columbus?”

“Yeah. I’ll get Uncle Alex to pick you up, so you don’t have to drive.”

Blaine closed his eyes. “Okay.”

“But, Blaine.”

Blaine mumbled, “Yeah?”

“Does it want to hurt you?”

Thad’s hand raised, clenched into a fist, dropped to his side.

Blaine said, “What?”

“The dragon,” Albert said, patiently. “Does it want to hurt you?”

The dragon curled under his feet; the dragon stared steadily at him as it floated beyond the precipice; the dragon waited and waited and waited.

“I don’t know,” Blaine replied. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back against the wall. It was cold. 

_Did you come here so you could say you tried?_

“I don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

He passed Thad as he was leaving the dorms, surrounded by his lacrosse teammates. They carried their sticks easily, and Blaine found himself remembering a familiar ache along his ribs.

“Hey,” Blaine said. He started to raise a hand to wave before thinking better of it. He let it hang limply at his side.

Thad looked at him, and finally said, “Hey,” back.

They nodded at each other, and then Thad turned to his teammates, faded into the crowd of sweatpants and jackets, became just another boy with a heavy stick and loud voice, and Blaine found himself hurrying in the opposite direction.

Sebastian’s father was waiting.

“Prompt,” he said, when Blaine slid into the passenger seat. Blaine swallowed, not knowing whether to take it as a compliment or a critique of all of the other times Alexander Smythe had picked him up from Dalton. He nodded to the console, the radio playing NPR and continued, “Feel free to change it to whatever you want to listen to.”

“What did Sebastian like?”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel, before he exhaled. “Oh,” he said lightly. “You know. Whatever teenage boys like.”

Blaine looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry for intruding on dinner.”

He inhaled, exhaled, and didn’t look away from the road. “You aren’t intruding, Blaine.” He shook his head, checked his mirrors before changing lanes, never making eye contact. “You married my son. You’re family.”

“Right.”

“You did a good thing.” He made a turn, didn’t look at Blaine even as his gaze skittered from the road ahead to the mirrors and back. “And you.” He inhaled, sharply. “You’re a good husband. Better than I’m a father.”

Blaine blinked. 

“Albert tells me you’ve got a shrine set up in your dorm for Sebastian.”

Very quietly, Blaine said, “It was the right thing to do.”

He laughed, made another turn, and still didn’t look at Blaine. “Dust it every day?”

Blaine nodded.

“Give offerings? Light incense?” Blaine nodded at each question, and Sebastian’s father shook his head, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “Like I said. Better than I’m a father.”

Blaine stared down at his hands. He swallowed.

“I’m glad you married my son,” Alexander Smythe said, steadily. “Isabella made the right choice, arranging this marriage.”

He said, to his hands, “You’re a good father.”

He admitted, “Didn’t even light incense, the first few months.” He snorted. “A shrine full of family, my dead son among them, and me? I lit a stick the day we buried Sebastian. And then—” He took a deep breath, shook his head, and finished, “then you came, asking what Sebastian liked.” He looked at Blaine, finally, his gaze flicking to the mirrors and meeting Blaine’s along the way. “Albert tells me you keep going into the realm of the dead to try to find him.”

Blaine inhaled, sharply.

“He must have made an impression on you.” He shook his head. “And I didn’t even know that you two had talked.”

“We hadn’t,” Blaine blurted.

His brow furrowed.

Blaine took a deep breath. “I hadn’t talked to him before we got married.”

He repeated, slowly, “You hadn’t talked to him.”

Blaine swallowed. “I’ve talked to him now.”

“Albert told me. He visits your dreams.”

“Yeah.”

Sebastian’s father shook his head, again. “You hadn’t talked to him,” he repeated, softly. He pulled into a parking lot, parked and turned off the engine, turning to finally look at Blaine. “And you—then why did you marry him?”

Blaine stared back. He inhaled, slowly.

Sebastian’s father shook his head. “Never mind.” He clapped a hand on Blaine’s shoulder. “I’m glad you did.” He unbuckled his seatbelt, stepped out, and said, “Let’s go.”

Blaine followed.

Albert was waiting for them already, at a table in an alcove where they would have relative privacy. They ate dinner undisturbed, Albert talking family business with Sebastian’s father, asking Blaine about Regionals—Blaine let them know that tickets were going on sale soon, and promised to send them an email when they did. Sebastian’s father asked about his classes, and Blaine found the conversation paths familiar. He was doing fine. His grades were good. Rehearsals were going well.

Then, Albert interrupted, “What about your dreams?”

Blaine closed his eyes. “They’re fine.”

Albert said, steadily, “You’re still dreaming of the realm of the dead.”

Blaine poked at his salad with a fork. “Sure.”

“Blaine,” Albert said, glancing at Sebastian’s father, before turning back to Blaine. “Hey. Look at me. I want to help.”

Blaine looked up. “This is why you invited me to dinner,” he said.

Albert shrugged. “Yeah.”

“And why you didn’t let me drive.” He looked down at the salad, glanced at Sebastian’s father, and then back to Albert. “So you could ask me about the realm of the dead.”

“I asked you to call me when you went back.” Albert sipped his water.

He put down his fork. “I’d like to be excused from this table,” Blaine said, to Sebastian’s father.

He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m concerned as well, Blaine.”

He sat, very still, his hands folded in his lap. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What did the dragon want?” Albert asked. He leaned forward, and then glanced at Alexander Smythe. “He said there’s a dragon.”

Sebastian’s father nodded.

“It doesn’t matter,” Blaine said, quietly. “It just asks questions, and I wake up.”

“What questions?”

“I don’t know.”

“Blaine,” Sebastian’s father said, and Blaine closed his eyes. “Please answer Albert’s questions.”

Blaine shook his head. “They’re just questions. It doesn’t hurt me. It just asks questions, and I wake up.”

“Have you answered them?” Albert asked.

Blaine shook his head, again. “I don’t know the answers.”

“Riddles?” Albert glanced at Sebastian’s father, who sat, placid and waiting. “It’s asking you riddles?”

His fingers tightened around each other. He shook his head. “Just questions.”

“Like what?”

_Why did you marry him?_

“It doesn’t matter,” Blaine said. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t answer.”

“Blaine,” Albert tried.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I sleep, and sometimes I end up there. The dragon asks me questions, and I wake up when I don’t answer them.”

“Could you try?” Sebastian’s father asked. “Could you try answering them?”

_Did you come here because you wanted to find him?_

Sebastian’s father said, “Albert says that he hasn’t been in contact with Sebastian in months. He says that Sebastian didn’t just disappear from your dreams, he’s been out of contact with everybody.” He inhaled, deeply. “And that’s why you went into the realm of the dead. To find my son.”

_Or did you come here so you could say you tried?_

Blaine shook his head, again. His heart pounded, unerringly loud in his chest.

“I don’t want to,” Blaine whispered, finally. “I don’t want to.”

Albert said, “What did it ask you, Blaine?”

Blaine’s fingers curled, unbidden, around each other. He said, very quietly, “I’d like to go back to Dalton now.”

 

* * *

 

The radio played _Prairie Home Companion_ as Sebastian’s father drove Blaine back to Dalton. They sat, silent, until he had pulled into the Dalton parking lot, and Blaine turned to leave the car.

“Blaine,” Sebastian’s father said. “He’s my son.”

Blaine stared at his hands, his fingers curled around the door handle. They were, he decided, good hands, with fingers that had never been broken even if they had struggled, the months in-between his two freshmen years. They were good fingers that held pencils, that played music, that had twisted around Sebastian’s as they laid basking on the sand. 

“I know,” Blaine said, at last. “I married him.”

Sebastian’s father sighed. “Good night, Blaine,” he said.

“Good night.” He opened the door. “Have a safe drive.”

He retreated to the building, turning around just before the door to watch the car as it pulled out of the parking lot. He let himself into the dorms, turning down familiar hallways only to stop short. Kurt was heading out of the freshman halls, wiping his hands on a handkerchief.

“Hey,” Blaine said. “Helping with Pavarotti?”

“Yeah.” He sniffed. “He’s awfully fussy with his birdseed. Little diva, isn’t he?”

Blaine frowned. “He wasn’t last year.” They hadn’t been the most meticulous of guardians, but Blaine thought he would have remembered if Pavarotti had been fussy about his food. 

Kurt shrugged. “Oh well.” He took in Blaine’s coat, the scarf still wound around his neck, and asked, “Did you go out?”

“Dinner,” Blaine said. “With Sebastian’s father.”

Kurt frowned. “Your… father-in-law?”

Blaine nodded. Kurt fell in step as Blaine headed back to his dorm. Blaine didn’t have anything to say, and for a while they walked in silence. There was a loud bark of laughter from one of the dorms, the sound of a movie playing on tinny laptop speakers, muffled laughter and the thumping of boys roughhousing. 

Kurt said, “Can I be honest with you?”

Blaine blinked. “Yeah. Sure.”

“When you asked about singing? I thought you were talking about me.”

Blaine stopped. His mouth opened, and closed. He stared.

“You and I? We hang out. We sing flirty duets together. You know my coffee order. Was I supposed to think that that was nothing?”

_And here I thought you loved me, Husband._

“You went to a football game with me.”

Blaine whispered, “I’m married.”

Kurt laughed, brittle. “He’s dead!” 

Blaine took a step back.

“I don’t get it,” Kurt said. “I asked around, and you didn’t even know him before you married him. Everybody says—”

He shook his head. “Stop,” he whispered. “Just stop.”

“You married him out of commitment.” Kurt shook his head. “Kevin won’t shut up about it, something about a betting pool that he should have won. But he’s dead. What is there to commit to?”

Blaine said, “I married him.”

“I just don’t understand.”

Blaine’s fingers found his ring, so light he could forget that he wore it, most of the time. He had pledged his life to Sebastian. He had committed. He had made a decision. He—

_Why did you marry him?_

Blaine said, “I’m sorry, Kurt.” He took another step back. “I didn’t realize…”

Kurt snorted.

“I married Sebastian over a year ago,” Blaine said. “I—”

He shook his head.

They had spent hours in the sun, curling their toes in warm sand and finding each other under the swell of the ocean. They had lingered as the Parisian sky had darkened and then lit up with the radiance of fireworks. They had laid next to each other, pressed forearm to forearm, underneath the covers of Sebastian’s bed, until Blaine had fallen asleep again and woken up alone.

The words were true, but they caught in his throat all the same. “I made a promise.”

 

* * *

 

“Hurry, Husband” Sebastian had laughed. “We’re losing daylight.”

“We’re dreaming,” Blaine had said, grinning as they slipped past the unmanned ticket booths and into the theme park. Mostly empty, it should have appeared desolate. Instead, Sebastian had turned, caught Blaine by the fingers and tugged, smile broadening with giddy delight. “We have all the time ahead of us,” Blaine had protested, even as Sebastian had tugged.

Sebastian laughed, loud, delighted. “Half of the joy of Disneyland is the rush of trying to do everything in one day.”

“They sell multi-day passes for a reason,” Blaine argued, but he couldn’t help his own smile. He craned his neck. “I didn’t expect this to be so vivid. I’ve never been to Paris Disneyland.”

Sebastian had smirked. “Well, I have.” He let go of Blaine’s hand, then, the callouses of his fingertips catching against Blaine’s for a fraction of a second. “Catch me,” he said, and then he was running, Blaine chasing after him, onto horse-drawn streetcars and through vast streets. Sebastian led them into the hedge labyrinth and Blaine had caught him around a bend, tackling them to the ground. Sebastian took him by the hand and guided him onto all of his favorite rides. Sebastian wrapped a familiar arm around his waist as they twirled under the fireworks. 

“I caught you,” Blaine had declared, before he had laughed, and laughed, and Sebastian’s face had been radiant as he joined in. 

 

* * *

 

Blaine woke the next day, glancing out the window as he cracked it open to let the smoke out of the room. Outside, he could see the lacrosse team coming back from their usual morning run, Thad among them. They were laughing, shoving each other good naturedly in the February chill. Thad looked up, and Blaine stared back.

In the cafeteria, Thad thumped his tray particularly loudly before sitting down across from Blaine at their usual table. “Rumor has it that you got in a fight with Kurt. I almost asked Nick to start a betting pool.”

Blaine looked up from the two extra pears on his tray. “Are we talking, again?”

“Depends.” He took a viciously loud bite out of his toast. “Are you going to be an asshole?”

Blaine closed his eyes. He opened them to say, as sincerely as he could, “I _am_ sorry, about Amelia.”

He sighed, flinging the toast onto his plate. “We can’t all agree to marry dead betrotheds.”

The corner of Blaine’s mouth twitched in acknowledgement. “Fair point,” he admitted.

“What I don’t get,” Thad said, “if you like grand gestures so much, why you married your betrothed.”

Blaine froze.

“You had a choice, didn’t you? If you wanted flowers and romance you could have just let the betrothal lapse. You didn’t have to—”

_Why did you marry him?_

“—marry Sebastian and then get your kicks in my relationship.”

Very quietly, Blaine said, “I only wanted to help.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Thad said. “I don’t need you to explain yourself, Blaine. I know what you wanted. You’re all confused about true love and commitment.” He picked up his toast again. “I’m still pissed at you.”

“Yeah.”

“Just tell me something.”

“Alright.”

“Why did you marry him?”

The pears were green, dappled with red. They were lush and ripe, and Blaine had spent the morning picking through the fruit baskets for the best ones to offer his husband. He had been doing so for over a year, hunting down the choice fruits, brewing coffee. He would probably do so for the rest of his life. He would never be alone; he would always be alone. He would spend his mornings with agarwood and coffee; he would spend his nights with a voice that faded as he woke.

He would always have Sebastian. He would never attend another dance with a boy.

“I suppose,” Blaine said quietly, “That I wanted to be safe.”

Thad blinked. “Safe from what?”

The memory rose, like a tidal wave, and Blaine said, “From being hurt again.”

 

* * *

 

He opened his eyes, not to mist, not to the unrelenting starkness, not to a house of endless hallways, but to rolling fields. He stood, among the grasses as they swayed before an imperceptible breeze. A few poppies dotted the fields, vibrant and blood red, just flecks before a vast expanse. He blinked, the dragon materializing, coil by coil, before him.

“Blaine Smythe,” the dragon said.

Blaine straightened. “If I answer your questions, will you tell me where Sebastian is?”

It studied him, as if it could already read all of Blaine’s secrets. “What are your answers?”

“I was fifteen,” Blaine began, before he stopped. “I was thirteen,” he corrected himself.

He had come out—only to his parents and Cooper. His mother had sighed, his father had frowned, and he had woken up two weeks later with a betrothed he didn’t want: Sebastian Smythe, living in Paris with his mother. They would meet in the summer, when Sebastian came to visit his father. In anticipation, Blaine had prepared a dozen excuses, none of them necessary when Sebastian had stayed in Europe instead.

“I was fourteen,” Blaine continued. He had gladly forgotten about Sebastian, had taken another boy to a dance. They had laughed, had danced, and late at night, Blaine had let his fingers wrap around the other’s, and, for a moment, thought that he could be in love. 

“I was fifteen,” Blaine said, “and I married Sebastian.” He said, as if the words were not his own, “I didn’t know him. We were fifteen. We were too young to get married, let alone for one of us to get married to a ghost.”

The dragon waited, and Blaine confessed, “I didn’t want to marry him.”

“No,” it said. “You didn’t.”

Blaine nodded. The grasses swayed, lush and green and vibrant. The dragon remained, intractable.

“But I did,” Blaine said, finally. “I married him, and maybe it was for the wrong reasons. Maybe I thought it would make me safe. I would never be found late at night, again, holding hands with a boy, if my husband was dead. Maybe…”

A whisker twitched.

Blaine’s mouth opened, closed again. “That’s all I know.” 

“Why are you here?” The dragon asked, again.

Blaine was sixteen. His husband had been dead for over a year. He had once shared months of dreams, vibrant and golden, and then during these months of yearning, he had yet to forget Sebastian: his eyes green, his mouth amused, his hands warm.

“Because I miss him.” Blaine answered, at last. In the distance, the grasses began to resolve themselves: a forest the stretched across, buildings that ran perpendicular to the horizon. “I want to be with him.”

The dragon hummed.

Blaine said, “Please help me find him.” He extended a hand, pressed it against the iridescent nose of the dragon’s face. The tiny scales caught along his fingers, and he let them. “I want to find him.”

“And if you don’t?”

“I will.” Blaine braced himself against the puff of warm air as the dragon laughed. He smiled. “I made a commitment. I’m going to find him.”

It huffed, and when it shook its head, Blaine let his hand fall to his side.

“I made a commitment. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with Sebastian.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” Blaine looked down, his empty hands, and then back up again. “I do.”

 

* * *

 

He woke, and this time, when he lit the incense, he mourned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/gi0wq4tdfusyzm6/btwa_chapter8.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/170844600906/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew-chapter-8)


	9. Chapter 9

That evening, that August, in that bedroom that Sebastian had grown up in Paris, Sebastian had appeared: the sunlight in his hair and the morning in his smile.

“Hey.”

Blaine had smiled. “Hey.” He hadn’t looked hard enough, or long enough. “Hey.”

Sebastian had put his book on down on the bedside table, had murmured, “And here I thought you loved me, Husband,” and Blaine had frozen, unable to say anything in return. He had listened, instead, taking in the sound of leaves rustling outside, the rumble of cars, the steady inhale and exhale of Sebastian’s breath. Sebastian had waited, and Blaine had laid there, unable to move.

He hadn’t wanted to move.

If Blaine got up, slipping from the covers to pull open the curtains… If Blaine got up, sleep still trailing in his footsteps… If Blaine got up—

If Blaine got up, the dream would end, and Sebastian would disappear.

 

* * *

 

As February drew to an end, Blaine found himself settling back into a routine of class in the morning, rehearsal right after fifth period, and study group in the evenings. Almost a week passed before Thad joined them again, and despite Nick’s best efforts, neither he nor Blaine spoke of Valentine’s day beyond confirming that he was still betrothed and Amelia was fine.

It was fine. Blaine continued his assigned duties at the dorm shrine, continued to burn incense in his room every morning, and dreamed.

It was not fine.

“Regionals is in three weeks!” Wes shouted, pounding his gavel once again on the table. “And what do I hear? Tenors!”

Blaine swallowed, tightly, along with the other tenors.

“Blaine, go practice your part with the others.” Wes rounded on the other tenors as Blaine stepped away gratefully. “As for you guys, do we need to go one by one again?”

“No?” Nick offered.

“We’ll start with you, Duval,” Wes retorted.

Blaine couldn’t help the sigh of relief as he made his way towards the baritones and basses. Thad raised an eyebrow before remembering that he was still miffed at Blaine. Anthony and Andrew, sophomore baritones who had joined this year, offered wry smiles in bemusement. “Escaped?” Jared rumbled, nudging the other senior Francis with an elbow.

“I guess,” Blaine muttered as Nick’s tenor neatly cut through the conversations. His breath control was impeccable, and he sang his part flawlessly. “Wes seems a little stressed.”

“He’s waiting on one last Ivy League—Yale,” Francis, who shared multiple classes with Wes, explained. “He’s already heard back from the other six he applied to.”

“Did he get in to all of them?” Blaine asked, trying to arrange his face into polite interest.

Jared snorted. “Did you bet on six or seven?”

Blaine couldn’t help his sheepish smile.

“Yeah,” Francis muttered, as Wes turned to David and made him sing the part alone. “He’s got into six already. Which means I’m out 100 dollars.” He grinned. “But Jared’s out too.”

“I only put fifty down to fuck with Wes.” He rolled his eyes.

“Jared bet that Wes would get rejected from all of them,” Francis explained, grinning. Thad had his nose buried in sheet music, pretending he wasn’t listening, but Blaine knew that he had put down money and was still in the bet. Anthony and Andrew were eavesdropping avidly as they texted on their phones.

“It’s only fifty,” Jared said, elbowing Francis again. “Wes knew I was just fucking around.”

“You’re lucky he isn’t superstitious.” Francis elbowed Jared back.

“I thought he was very superstitious,” Kurt interrupted. “With all of that prayer to ghosts and whatnot that he does.”

Blaine froze.

Kurt was sitting in one of the couches, one leg thrown over the other, pretending to read his sheet music. He put it down now, frowning at them.

“Aren’t you a tenor?” Jared demanded.

“Countertenor,” Kurt said airily, waving a hand. “But you wouldn’t know—”

Wes called, “Kurt Hummel, do you or do you not sing a tenor part?”

“Better get to it.” Jared sneered as Kurt scowled and made his way to Wes and the other tenors on the side of the room. He glanced at Blaine, and said, “I know you and him are chummy, but—”

Blaine shrugged. “He doesn’t pray,” Blaine murmured, as Kurt’s timbre looped through the assigned harmonies, hitting the notes comfortably in chest voice. “And he’s upset at me, I think. Because of Sebastian.”

“Your husband?” Francis raised an eyebrow.

Blaine nodded.

“What does he have to do with Kurt?” Jared asked, before he drew back, mouth parting. “Oh. He really does like you then? I thought it was a joke.”

Thad, still pretending he wasn’t listening, snorted.

Jared glanced at Thad, and then at Kurt who had sung to Wes’ satisfaction, before turning back to Blaine. “Hey,” he said, lowly. “I don’t know him, but from what I’ve seen, he’s an ass.”

“Kurt?”

“Wouldn’t even put money in the betting pool. Got all huffy and asked why we’d bet on something as inane as college applications.”

Blaine sighed. “Better than last year,” he muttered.

“Yeah, and that’s my point.”

Blaine frowned.

“Look,” he said. “Don’t get pissed. But, I put money on commitment like everybody else.”

Blaine blinked.

“So did Francis,” he added, glancing over as Francis waggled his fingers back. “Most of us did.”

“Okay?”

“I didn’t believe in star-crossed shit when I put the bet down, and I don’t believe it now,” he said, flatly. “Our souls have bound to have been reincarnated a dozen times by now, right?”

Blaine nodded, mutely.

“You think every time you’re destined to find the same soul?”

“I don’t think that’s why Kurt’s upset at me,” Blaine protested, weakly.

“You married your husband out of commitment,” Jared declared, “You married your betrothed’s ghost out of commitment. That’s not something to be ashamed of. That’s more than that Kurt can say he’s ever done.”

Blaine blinked.

“There must be hundreds of souls in this world that you’re connected to. What matters is the one you pick. And that was your husband’s. Nobody has the right to get upset at you for doing that. Nobody has the right to make you upset for doing that. Now are we going to practice or not?” He jerked his head towards Wes, who was coaching Adrian the freshman through his part. “Before Wes realizes we haven’t been practicing this entire time?”

“Yeah.” Blaine swallowed, his fingers clenching briefly into his palm before he relaxed. “Yeah. We better. And for all of our sanity, _Wes_ better hear back from Yale soon.”

 

* * *

 

That evening, Blaine found Wes at the dorm shrine. He had a volunteering shift and had stopped by the storage closet to pick up the broom before heading into the dorm shrine.

Wes was sitting in one of the many chairs lined up against the wall, staring steadily at the light of a dozen embers burning down.

Blaine swallowed. “Hey. Wes.”

Wes said, “Blaine.” He nodded at the broom. “Am I in your way?”

Blaine shook his head. He wiped down the shrine, swept the ground clean of dust, emptied the trash cans, and then sat, four chairs down from Wes. He inhaled, slowly, and exhaled, watching the light on the ends of a dozen sticks of incense flicker.

“You’ve been here more often,” Wes said.

Despite the weather outside, the air inside the room was warm. Blaine took off his blazer, leaving him in the Dalton sweater over his dress shirt and tie. He folded it in his lap, patting out the creases. “Yeah,” he said.

The lights flickered, like constellations in the night.

“Did you come here to pray?” Blaine asked.

Wes laughed, tilting his head back. “Guidance,” he said. He reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone. “For difficult decisions.”

Blaine took it. _Congratulations_ , it said. Yale, it said.

“You got into all of them,” Blaine said.

“I did,” Wes confirmed. “Should have applied to Brown to make it an even eight.”

He was startled enough to laugh. He offered the phone back. “Do you know where you want to go?”

He hummed. “I’ll visit them this spring break. Decide then.”

“Congratulations.”

He took his phone, staring down at the email before he tucked it back into his pocket. “Thanks,” he said.

“Who were you praying to?”

Wes answered, readily, “My great-grandparents.”

Blaine nodded. He sucked in a quiet breath. “Have you met them?”

“No.”

The air in the room was sweet and fragrant. “Okay.”

“I don’t know what advice they’d give.” Wes stretched out his arms, twisting his back slightly to crack it. “But they’re dead,” he tapped the floor with a heel, “unlike my parents or my grandparents.”

“Does that make it easier to talk to them?”

“It makes it easier to disregard their opinions.” He laughed at Blaine’s expression. “They’re my ancestors,” he explained. “I respect them. I’ll make offerings for the rest of my life. But I don’t have to face their judgement at new years, asking why I picked Columbia over Harvard or Princeton over Yale.”

Blaine offered, “You should go where you want to go.”

Wes hummed. “Yeah. They say that.”

“I mean it.”

“So do they.”

“I really do.”

Wes grinned. “Alright. I’ll believe you.”

 

* * *

 

Rehearsal the next day ended late, as Nick doled out money after Wes announced that yes, he had indeed made it into every Ivy League he had applied to, and no, he did not know which one he was going to, that was what campus tours were for.

Blaine, pocketing the couple hundred dollars that he had made, tried not to look too pleased. Andrew, who he had split the pool with, didn’t try: smugly waving his share in front of Anthony’s face and laughing when Anthony swatted at him.

Blaine accepted Nick and Jeff’s friendly pats on the back, and even Thad nudged his ankle companionably before bemoaning his luck to the others. He was still grinning when Kurt walked up to him.

“Hey,” Blaine said, startled.

“Congratulations,” he tilted his head, “Blaine.”

He blinked. “Thanks.” He glanced around, the other Warblers congratulating Wes on his achievement, before turning back to Kurt. “It’s really Wes who deserves congratulations though. Can you believe it? All seven?”

“It’s quite an… accomplishment,” he said, airily.

Blaine nodded. “Yeah. I’m glad he got in.” He fidgeted with the crumbled bills in his pocket. “Did you put a bet down?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Oh!” He waved a hand. “No. Why would I?”

Blaine shrugged. “No reason. Just wondering.”

“Perhaps I should have. How much did you make?”

“About five-hundred,” Blaine muttered.

Kurt froze. “Five hundred dollars?”

Blaine’s mouth twitched, weakly, at the corners. “Yeah? Not many people put money on all seven. And half the seniors put gag bets for zero schools.”

“How much money was in this bet?” Kurt demanded.

Blaine had tried very hard to avoid any information about betting pools; Nick kept track of all of the bets. Blaine shrugged, said, “Nick would know,” and glanced over at Wes, who was cheerfully fist-bumping one of the seniors. “I’m going to congratulate Wes. Again.”

“Wait.” Kurt’s fingers brushed against his blazer, and Blaine froze. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Blaine inhaled, steadily, through his nose.

“There’s a party on Saturday. Rachel’s throwing it. You met her, right? From New Directions. Did you want to go with me?”

The chatter of the other Warblers was, suddenly, unbearably loud. Blaine shrugged, managed, “I don’t know. Regionals is coming up,” and tried to turn back to Wes.

“We’re all friends,” Kurt began.

“I’ll check my schedule,” he said.

Kurt frowned, pursing his lips slightly.

“I’m going to…” He exhaled, sharply. “I’ll think about it.”

“Com’on.” He shouldered Blaine, and Blaine inhaled deeply as Kurt’s shoulder brushed against his. “It’ll be fun. Apparently Rachel wants to get drunk.”

“Sounds fun.” His mouth stretched up, like the ends of it were detached from the rest of his lips. “I’ll look at my schedule.”

“Alright.” He stepped back. “Great! I’ll drive. I better check on Pavarotti now. See you!”

Blaine smiled, weakly. “Okay?” he began, but Kurt was hurrying away. He headed over to where the rest of the Warblers were, joining in the congratulations. Thad met his eyes as he joined the group, raising his eyebrows, and Blaine shrugged back, falling easily into the familiar unspoken dialogue that all of them had developed after over a year of classes and rehearsal together.

“Congratulations,” he said to Wes.

Wes grinned back, pulling him into a hug. “Congratulations to you too. You didn’t tell me you bet on me getting into all seven.”

Blaine tried to smile, his skin feeling disconnected from his muscles. “Couldn’t see any school rejecting you.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

 

* * *

 

That night, he was in one of the practice rooms, half-heartedly running through Hanon exercises when his parents called. Blaine spent two rings debating premium practice room time against Czerny and accepted the call.

“Blaine,” his mother began, “have you eaten?”

“Yeah,” he said. “After rehearsal.”

“Good. How are your classes?”

“Fine.” He ran a finger along the keys, just letting his fingers slide over white and black and white. “Wes got into Yale.”

“Oh!” His mother exclaimed. “Good for him!”

“Yeah.” His finger caught along a groove between two keys. “How are you and Dad?”

“We’re fine, we’re fine.” His mother’s voice washed over him, lilting over his father’s job, the flower buds she had picked up for spring planting, how Mrs. Langley from St. Ivers had asked if he was still singing—

“What?”

“Mrs. Langley,” Blaine’s mother repeated. “Your choir teacher from St. Ivers? I met her at the grocery store. She wanted to know if you were still singing?”

“What did you tell her?”

“That you were.”

“Okay.” Blaine’s breath caught, and he took a slow breath. “Yeah.”

“She was very pleased to hear that you’re in the Warblers. I told her about your upcoming Regionals performance. She said she would try to make it.”

“Okay,” Blaine said. The phone felt heavy in his hand. “Okay.”

“Blaine?”

“That’s fine,” Blaine said. “I have to go.”

His mother said, “Alright. Make sure you eat properly.”

“Yeah.” Blaine said. “I will.”

“We’ll see you at Regionals, then? Unless you plan on visiting before then?”

“No.”

“Alright. Your dad and I will see you in three weeks, then. Alexander Smythe is going, right?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“Bye.”

His heart pounded, suddenly too fast. His ribs ached from the pressure. He let his phone fall to his side, before wrapping an arm around himself in familiar pressure and pressing his head very carefully to the music.

Regionals. Three weeks. His lips moved, his breath barely passing through his lips as he mouthed an echo of his mother’s words. His hands made their way to the keys, the tips brushing against varnished wood, his palms sinking before rising. He began the first exercise, and then the second one, the third, the fourth.

His fingers were still moving, still playing, still doing anything except make music, when curfew came.

 

* * *

 

His mother left a message.

_Blaine, have you been eating? Call me back._

Blaine didn’t call back.

 

* * *

 

“Well?” Kurt demanded. “Are you coming or not?”

Blaine blinked. “What?”

“Rachel’s party,” Kurt said, hands on his hips. He raised an eyebrow. “I told you about it days ago.”

He had been sitting in the library studying: a familiar excuse to leave his phone on silent in case his mother called him again. At some point, he had finished his homework and read ahead in enough of his textbooks that he browsed half-heartedly through the shelves before finding a novel to flip through in an attempt to look busy.

Wes had, passing by with some of the other seniors, given him a skeptical frown, but had moved on.

Kurt, apparently, had not.

“Oh,” Blaine said, putting the book down. “Um. Right. Kurt, about that party.”

“I thought you said you wanted to hang out with my friends.” He leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. “Rachel said there’d be alcohol.”

“Right.” Blaine swallowed. “I don’t know if that’s such a great idea.”

“Why?”

Blaine stared down at his book. “Kurt,” he said. “I’m married.”

“We’re just going as friends.” Kurt clapped his hands, once. “Well?”

Two friends, going to a party, together. Memory rose like the tide, and Blaine was choking on it, something like terror paralyzing his limbs. His homework was strewn across the table. Blaine, very slowly, began to clean it up, sorting papers into their binders, sweeping a handful of highlighters into his bag, stacking his books into a pile.

“So you’re coming?”

“I’m sorry,” Blaine said. He packed his bag, his fingers shaking. “I’m sorry, Kurt.”

“You said you would go!”

He dragged his bag onto his shoulder. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Blaine?”

“I have to go.”

 

* * *

 

“I thought you were going to a party,” Thad drawled.

“You mean this isn’t a party?” Blaine waved a pen, gesturing at the other Warblers sprawled upon the couches in the sophomore commons. They had been putting a valiant effort towards studying before Nick had given up and started streaming anime on his laptop. Blaine glanced over at the screen—just as something that appeared to be a worm seemed to eat a pigtailed girl—before he stared down at the book he had been reading earlier.

Thad leaned back in his chair, twirling the pen he had been using to annotate his textbook absently. “Finally decided to stop leading on Kurt?”

“I wasn’t leading him on.”

“Sure. That’s why you went to his old high school’s football game.”

Blaine looked down at his book, turned a page, and continued to stare at the pages until the words blurred. “If I’m not interfering with Amelia, you shouldn’t be bothering me about Kurt.” He inhaled. “Or Sebastian.”

Thad shrugged. “Okay. Fine.” He threw his pen down. “It’s three weeks until Regionals.”

He said, “Yeah.”

“How’s your part going.”

“Fine,” Blaine said.

“Still confident to be our soloist after you dropped a mannequin onto my betrothed’s head?”

Blaine shook his head. “God, Thad. You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

Thad hesitated, before he laughed, wryly. “I might still be a little upset.”

“Right.”

“I’m working on it,” Thad said. He picked up a highlighter, turned a page in his textbook and marked a phrase. He hesitated, and then offered, “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” Blaine set his book down. “I get that you’re still mad.”

Thad tilted his head back, before he said, “I’m not.”

The corner of Blaine’s mouth ticked up.

“Maybe a little,” he conceded.

“Just a little.” Blaine agreed.

“Not actually mad,” Thad said. “Just still a little mad.”

“Okay.” He said, “Is Amelia coming to Regionals?”

He scowled, but then his expression eased. “Yeah. She’ll be there with my parents.”

“That’s nice.”

“What about you?”

Blaine blinked. “Sebastian?”

Thad smirked. “I meant if your parents were going.”

“Oh,” Blaine said. He stared at his book, the words no more coherent than they were before. “Yeah.” His mouth was very dry. “Yeah.”

Thad studied him, and Blaine met his gaze head-on, waiting. Finally, he turned away. “I suppose it’s hard to have Sebastian watch you perform.”

Blaine said, very steadily, “Yeah.”

Nick’s laptop was playing something bright and cheerful, high-pitched voices singing a cheery duet as a girl ran across a pastel background. Everybody seemed unnervingly fascinated. Blaine turned back to his book, flipping back the pages until the words came back into focus.

He couldn’t remember what he had been trying to read.

 

* * *

 

There was something about slipping out of his room after curfew, making his way down the hallway until he was at the dorm shrine, the room fragrant with agarwood, the room dark except for the dozens of tiny embers glowing on top of the last of the incense.

Blaine dragged himself to it, found William Anderson smiling on the sophomore shelf and held it in his hands before the shrine. He stood, head bowed, just breathing.

“Great-grandfather,” he finally said.

They had never met. William Anderson had died before Blaine had ever been born, and the most he had seen was his portrait on the family shrine.

The words stuck in his throat. Somehow, he had hoped that coming to dorm shrine, that standing before his ancestor would make the prayers easier than kneeling before Sebastian, still smiling, still fifteen.

It didn’t.

Regionals was in two weeks. Sebastian would not be there. Sebastian’s father, Albert Smythe, Blaine’s parents, and Mrs. Langley from St. Ivers would be there, but Sebastian, his husband, would not.

He closed his eyes, tiny pinpricks of light burning themselves onto his eyelids.

Sebastian would never hear him sing. He had been furiously jubilant when Sebastian had changed his summer plans those years ago. He was furious that Sebastian would never hear him sing.

He was terrified.

He grasped the new emotion, letting it fill his lungs as he inhaled, letting it settle into the cracks between his ribs. He reached for it—or, perhaps it had always been there, waiting for him to confront it.

Sebastian was dead. Sebastian was gone. Sebastian would never hold his hand or pull him close. He would never be caught on a dark night, holding Sebastian’s hand, tucked into the crook of his arm. Sebastian would always live in the realm of the dead, perpetually dead, perpetually gone, perpetually—

He took a deep breath.

“Great-grandfather,” he began, hands clutched in an effigy of an embrace, “I need some guidance.”

He talked, quietly, until his knees ached and his chest no longer hurt. He talked until his shoulder tightened from curling over his ribs, and then he set the portrait of William Anderson back on the sophomore shelf and went to bed.

 

* * *

 

He had been climbing—he was climbing—up stone steps as they curved around and around within the perimeter of the tower walls. His fingers had brushed against smooth stone and rough motor as he climbed. His thighs had ached.

How long had he been climbing?

Step after step, he had climbed higher. His toes curled in his sneakers, as if they could grip onto the smooth stone if he fell. His breath came faster and faster. His thighs ached.

Finally, the steps stopped, and there was just a wooden door, solid planks held together with metal rivets.

Blaine had stood there, for a long time. He had stared until his breath no longer came in short gasps and his thighs no longer ached. He had stood there, a voice not unlike the dragon’s asking what he was waiting for.

He had opened the door.

“It’s you,” a familiar voice said.

“Sebastian.”

“Husband.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/2ouxdrni95qj2fi/btwa_chapter9.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/171119335041/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew-chapter-9)


	10. Chapter 10

They had been thirteen and newly betrothed.

Blaine had said nothing while his parents arranged the betrothal and signed the paperwork. He was a second son, and Sebastian was an only child; Blaine would take Sebastian’s name, when the marriage went through.

He said nothing, and his parents said nothing. They made the arrangements in silence. They arranged discussions in silence. They signed the paperwork in silence.

Blaine would meet Sebastian in the summer, when he returned to Ohio from Paris. They would get along, Blaine’s mother assured. It was only a betrothal, and one barely binding at that. At the very least, he would make a new friend.

Blaine said nothing. He had said nothing; he had not expressed any inclination or disinclination about meeting Sebastian.

At least, his mother had said, you would make a new friend. Somebody who understood you. Somebody who you could trust.

(Somebody you could love.)

He only hesitated a day. Then he found Sebastian Smythe on Facebook and sent the friend request.

This is a lie.

 

* * *

 

This had been one of his dreams.

He opened his eyes, and this time there was no dragon, no mist, just Linda Smythe on a low-hanging branch, kicking her ankles back and forth underneath her sunflower-patterned dress.

Blaine froze.

“Blaine,” she exclaimed, flinging her arms out. She wobbled precariously, before righting herself. “You’re back!”

“I.” His fingers tensed, relaxed, and he said. “Linda Smythe.”

“Call me Auntie.”

“Auntie Linda,” Blaine said, automatically.

She giggled. “Aren’t you great?” Her ankles swung, back and forth. “What brings you back, Blaine?”

The realm of the dead was no longer shrouded in fog. Instead, it spread out before him in rolling hills. Linda Smythe sat in one of the few trees that dotted the landscape. Blaine said, “I was looking for Sebastian.”

She sobered. “Still?”

He said, quietly, “Still.”

She slid down from the tree, grinning the way Sebastian had, in so many of Blaine’s other dreams. “Let’s go then.”

“Go?”

Linda tilted her head. “Don’t you want to find Sebastian?”

He said, “Yes.”

She said, “What if he doesn’t want to see you?”

Blaine had woken up. He had turned in his bed, slipped from the covers to light incense in the mid-February air, still cold, still uncertain about whether or not it was going to warm soon. He had knelt, prayed, and tried not to think of what it would be like if Sebastian never wanted to see him again.

 

* * *

 

Sebastian said, very quietly, “Why are you here, Blaine?”

Sebastian stood before him. Sebastian, almost a year older since the last time they had met, like he had aged with Blaine during those long months apart, when Blaine had torn his soul from his body and sent it into the realm of the dead. Sebastian, his husband.

“Sebastian,” he echoed, unable to say anything else after nine months of searching. “This. You.” He took a deep breath. “Don’t.”

“Why are you here?” he repeated. He didn’t step closer, didn’t take Blaine’s hand even as it stretched further and dropped, listless. “Blaine, this is the realm of the dead.”

“You disappeared,” he said. “You left me.” He didn’t reach out. “Please, Sebastian.”

“You’re not dead.”

Blaine said, “Only a little.”

He stepped forward, caught himself, said, “Only a little? Blaine—”

 

* * *

 

“So where is Sebastian?”

She had been skipping ahead of him, her skirt fluttering in the wind that had begun to blow. Atop a grassy knoll, she had turned and pointed in the distance. There, nestled along the horizon, was a tower, its layers stacked upon each other in a red-capped pagoda.

“Is that where Sebastian is? Locked in a tower?”

She shrugged. “What do you think?”

“This isn’t a fairytale,” he had protested. Skeletons in a closet, a dragon wrapped in iridescent coils, and now a tower in the distance. “Am I supposed to climb up his hair? Have three days to solve a riddle?”

She frowned at him, not quite maternal disappointment, but something similar to it all the same lingering in her gaze.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “But, why are you helping me?” Blaine asked, as Linda scrambled up yet another tree, her skirt swishing. “And where are the other dead?”

“They’re around,” she said, cheerily. “And it’s not just me. There was a dragon, wasn’t there?”

Blaine froze. “How did you know about the dragon?”

She tilted her head at him, her hair tumbling around her face. “It’s a dragon?” She laughed. “Hard to miss a dragon.”

“You weren’t there,” he said, very slowly. “I stopped seeing you when I found the skeleton.”

She shrugged, kicking her ankles.

Blaine whispered, “Are you really one of Sebastian’s ancestors?”

“Didn’t you see me on the shrine?”

The first time he had come back from the realm of the dead, Albert had taken her framed photo, placed it in Blaine’s hands, and Blaine had recognized the eyes, as green as Sebastian’s, the smile, the nose and the chin and the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed. He had never been able to stop seeing Linda Smythe after that. One visit, into the realm of the dead, and suddenly Linda Smythe’s smiling portrait followed him whenever he returned home.

Sebastian’s father never spoke of her. Albert never spoke of her. Blaine had never asked about Sebastian’s aunt who had died before he had even been born.

Blaine had never asked.

He asked it now.

“How did you die?”

 

* * *

 

Linda had been climbing: up a tree, going higher and higher. Her hands had clung to the branches, her toes had curled around rough bark, she had pulled herself higher and higher, from thicker branches to thin ones that snapped under hands and forced her to choose new ones.

The bark was rough against her hands as she scrambled: higher, higher, higher.

Then the branch under her foot had snapped.

It was fast. It was painless. She had fallen, so far, so quickly, and when she landed it had all ended.

This, Blaine learned, is a lie.

 

* * *

 

For months, Blaine’s knees had ached as he knelt, incense before him, grief in hand. He had closed his eyes, letting agarwood fill his lungs in long, slow, breaths.

“Sebastian,” he had said, the way he had always begun every morning: agarwood in his lungs, Sebastian’s name on his lips, grief so neatly set aside that he had never thought to look for it.

The smoke had curled around him, and that time he had let it envelop him, wrap itself around him coil after coil. He inhaled, and this time he let himself unwrap his grief, just one layer.

“Kurt invited me to a party,” he said. “He, well.”

He tilted his chin up, sighing.

“He likes me.”

The incense had smoldered.

“I don’t want to go,” he had whispered. “I don’t want to. But I don’t want to run away, either.”

He bowed. The smoke curled. Outside, the winter air was still brisk and cool.

He had said, “I wish you were here.”

(This is what he did not say.)

_I miss you._

 

* * *

 

The room at the top of the tower was bright and airy, the curtains drawn to let in the sunlight outside, the windows open to let in a breeze. Sebastian stood, at the window, his hands on the sill, his body one breath from levering itself out—

“What are you doing here, Blaine?”

—and down.

“I had to find you,” Blaine said, his feet rooted to the stone of the floor. He reached, let his hand fall to his side, and Sebastian didn’t move.

Sebastian didn’t move.

In all of the months of searching, Blaine had never thought about what would happen when he actually found Sebastian. He would search, he would find, and Sebastian, wherever he was, would return to him.

Sebastian didn’t move.

There was a low bench against a wall, a table, with a tea set still laid out on it—a pot and three cups, why were there three cups?

Who else had been here?

“Sebastian,” Blaine said. “I came to find you.”

He said, “Why? What could you possibly be doing here?”

He had married Sebastian, that November, lighting the effigy that was both wedding and funeral pyre. He had made a commitment.

Sebastian scoffed, “You ripped your soul out of your body—”

“You left me!” Blaine shouted back. “Sebastian, you just disappeared on me, I stopped dreaming of you. You—”

“You died.” Sebastian turned, then. He stepped away from the window. His hair fell into his eyes, and when he lifted his head, his mouth was very flat. “You died to find me?”

“No. No.” He took a deep breath, “I just started the process a little earlier.”

“Why?”

“You’re my husband,” Blaine said. “Of course I would come.”

“Your husband.” Sebastian echoed. “Of course.”

Blaine repeated, “Of course.”

This was, of course, a lie.

 

* * *

 

“I wouldn’t call it jumping,” Linda murmured, her voice sweet and young.

Linda had been climbing, higher and higher, until she reached the peak. The tree was very old, and very tall, and from the peak she could see far beyond the house.

She had been twelve.

For one, very fleeting moment, she had wondered what it would be like, without the walls of the house closing in every minute. She had wondered what it would be like, walking out without a door closing with every step.

For one, very fleeting moment—

“Just letting go.”

(She was lying.)

 

* * *

 

This had not been a dream.

Blaine had been at the Smythe house, sifting out Sebastian’s papers in the desk for his own. He had moved in, properly moved in, the week after school had let out for the summer. He had spent several days with his parents, sorting his clothes into boxes, wrapping knickknacks for transport and storage, and packing his music books.

He was sorting through Sebastian’s drawers: loose-leaf still half wrapped, the package torn open and barely a quarter used; notebooks from his elementary school days; a binder full of music, choreography scribbled between the staves. There was something unbearable about emptying Sebastian’s desk drawer of his childhood to replace it with Blaine’s future. He purloined the loose-leaf, his ribs unusually tight around his lungs. He packed the old notebooks into a box for the attic labeled _Sebastian’s Elementary School Notebooks_.

He read the binder.

At the very bottom of the deepest drawer, underneath layers of loose-leaf and a stack of his elementary school work, Sebastian had kept this binder of music. The music was meticulously kept, and where Blaine’s music had been covered with notes on fingerings, dynamics, phrasing; Sebastian’s binder of music was annotated with steps and pirouettes.

He spent hours going through the binder, flipping each page back and forth with the tips of his fingers. When the sun had set, Blaine’s back was cramped from where he had hunched on the floor, his back curled around the hard edge of the bedframe.

He had put the binder back in the very bottom of the drawer, stacked his music books on top, and finished unpacking. He had carried boxes of Sebastian’s old clothes to the attic. He had sorted through the scant drawers of too-small T-shirts and shorts, unable to find an outfit that would fit a fifteen year old Sebastian: broad in the shoulders and tall in a way that none of the articles of clothing would have suggested.

He had replaced Sebastian’s clothes, Sebastian’s books, Sebastian’s presence with his own.

But the binder of music—

He had left the binder of music in its place, at the bottom of the deepest desk drawer.

 

* * *

 

Linda Smythe was cheery as she skipped ahead. “It’s nice to have you here, Blaine. We never get visitors except for little Albert, and even then he’s not a very good conversationalist.”

He trailed after her, wading through the grass, travelling still towards the tower in the distance. “Albert Smythe?” He said, “He’s older than me.”

“You’re also little,” she reassured.

He laughed, a little. “I don’t think that’s what I meant.”

“Well, what did you mean, then?”

He shrugged. Linda Smythe— _his aunt_ —twirled, her skirt fluttering around her calves, impish smile dimpling her 12-year-old cheeks.

“You don’t ask a lady her age,” she laughed, skipping away from the question like she skipped forward, towards the tower in the distance. “But, for you, I’ll let you know.” She tapped her lip secretively. “I’m sixty-four.”

“Sixty-four?”

“And still in perfect health!” She flung her arms out.

“And you didn’t age.”

She giggled, shaking her head.

He stared, wondering what she would look like, wondering what it would be like, if she was still alive. How deep would the creases of her eyes have grown? Would her hair have gone gray? Would she be married, with children Blaine’s age?

She paused. “Are you worried you’ll be married to a fifteen year old forever?”

Blaine swallowed.

“You don’t have to worry. Souls are ageless.” She didn’t touch him, but Blaine thought maybe she should. Just put a hand on his arm, something maternally reassuring. Instead, she drew her arms in, wrapping them around herself to curl her fingers around her elbows.

“I wasn’t worried,” Blaine said, his throat dry. “I just wondered what you would look like if your body was sixty-four.”

She laughed. “Why?”

He shook his head.

“We can only go forward with what we have,” she said. “And this is what I have.”

 

* * *

 

August, last year, Blaine had dreamed.

He was standing in the coffee shop, the edges of his peripheral vision a little blurred wherever he turned—walls, chairs, tables, and faceless strangers that sipped at their mugs as steadily as a metronome. He had just walked in, Dalton uniform and a scarf wrapped around his neck as if he had come straight from campus, and Sebastian had looked up from where had been sitting, papers strewn across the table as if he had been studying.

What would he have been studying?

“Hey,” he said, slouching back in his seat, his gaze unabashed as he took Blaine in, trousers loose at the knee where the brace had stretched the fabric, blazer shoulders just a touch too wide to accommodate a sling. He smirked, and Blaine thought, for a terrifying second, that Sebastian had noticed the too obvious evidence of his first freshman year.

“Sebastian,” Blaine said.

“Took your time, didn’t you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He didn’t sit down, his knees locked.

Sebastian tilted his head, just a fraction, and said, “I’ve been waiting.” He gestured, a flip of the wrist as if to encompass the papers and empty cup of coffee.

“I have a life.”

“And I’m dead?” He scoffed. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“No. That’s not—”

“Do you regret marrying me?”

“No!” Blaine stared, his heart pattering in his chest too violently. “Sebastian—”

“Do you even want to be here, Blaine? With me?”

“I married you,” he had said, as if that would be enough. But he had known, perhaps he had even wanted.

It had never been enough.

 

* * *

 

“So, Sebastian is up there?”

Linda Smythe had shrugged. “He should be,” she said, her eyes wide and guileless. She had craned her neck to peer around the door, her gaze travelling the length of the staircase as it spiraled up as if carved into the walls themselves. “He should be.”

“Alright.” He had fisted his hands in his pockets, and now he took them out, one hand against the wall to guide him as he walked. “Then I’m going up.”

“What if he doesn’t want to see you?” Linda had asked. “What if you go up there and he turns you away? What if—”

“I’m his husband,” Blaine said. “He’ll see me.”

She pursed her lips: not quite a frown, something closer to a pout. She had said nothing as Blaine walked higher, and finally she called out, where she was still standing on the ground: “What will you do if he doesn’t?”

He shook his head.

“Blaine,” she called.

He paused. Linda Smythe was very small and very young.

“It hurt.”

His fingers slipped on the stone.

“It hurt, a lot.”

Still on the staircase, he asked: “How did you die?”

She said, very quietly, “Don’t you know already?”

 

* * *

 

She had been twelve.

The third child of five, the only girl, her parents had cherished her with lavish dresses and no expectations except to be pretty, to be demure, to do as she was told, to be quiet, to be attentive, to be obedient, to be—

She had climbed the tree, and at the apex, she had seen beyond the house.

When she jumped, for those brief moments, it had felt like she was free.

(This is also a lie.)

 

* * *

 

In his dream, Sebastian took him by the hand and led him to each one of his haunts. They walked the streets of Paris, the seasons everchanging beneath their feet.

It was summer, just reaching the end of it, the air still hot and thick with humidity, even though the sun had set and night had settled. They were walking, hand-in-hand, through the streets of Paris when Sebastian had paused, his fingers tightening, and said, “Let’s go another way.”

“Sebastian?”

Sebastian had tugged, turning around to retrace their steps, and Blaine had hesitated before following. He had hesitated, and in that hesitation he had a moment before he turned. Just one moment, the space between two blinks of an eye, but it had been enough.

Blaine didn’t know the streets of Paris, not clearly enough to dream them. His dreams were colored with Sebastian’s memories, who knew too intimately the feel of asphalt on his skin. Since arriving at Paris to visit Sebastian’s mother, Sebastian had guided his dreams, adding detail that he could never have known.

The streets were empty.

“Let’s go another way.”

The streets were empty.

“Sebastian?”

The streets—

Sebastian laid, limbs splayed, in an otherwise empty street.

“Sebastian?”

His ribs ached. His knee twinged. His shoulder hurt.

“Sebastian?”

He hadn’t woken up. He had turned. He had followed Sebastian, retracing their steps. Sebastian had said nothing, and Blaine had said nothing in return. Instead, they walked, hand-in-hand until Blaine had woken up, the memory of asphalt on his cheek horrifyingly familiar, a familiar terror rising like a tide threatening to wash him away.

 

* * *

 

“How did you die?”

Sebastian froze.

“Did you walk into the car on purpose?”

“Blaine,” Sebastian said. “Where did you come up with that?”

Blaine said, “Did you?”

“No,” he said. “No, I didn’t.”

(This is also a lie.)

 

* * *

 

This had been an old dream.

Sebastian had taken him by the hand, even as the labyrinth loomed high before them. His hand was warm, palm wide and fingers long, wrapping around Blaine’s palm to tug him along.

“A hedge maze?” Blaine had asked, skeptically.

He laughed, looking, suddenly, younger than his sixteen years, childish delight dimpling in his cheeks. “This was my favorite part.”

“Let me guess. Because you could make out with boys without getting caught?” Blaine raised an eyebrow.

He smirked back. “I was going to say something about the joys of childhood and the delight in solving a puzzle, but that works too, Husband. Why? Want to get lost together?”

Blaine had shaken his head, ducking his chin to hide his blush.

“We could.” He leered. “I know all the best places. There isn’t anybody here either, unless you want.”

Blaine laughed. “You’re always so out there.”

“You’re here,” Sebastian had said. “In Paris.” He stopped at the entrance, turning, his other hand reaching over to tangle their fingers together.

“I am,” Blaine agreed, squeezing back. “But I don’t want to get lost.”

Sebastian had scoffed. “Fine.” He stepped back, drawing Blaine towards the entrance.

He dug his heels. “How long will this take?”

“We have all the time in the world.” He paused, and then corrected, “All the time in this dream.”

Blaine closed his eyes against the grief that surged against his ribs. “All the time,” he echoed, quietly. “But we won’t get lost?”

“Straight to the center and then back out again. Promise.” He squeezed Blaine’s fingers.

Blaine ducked his head. “Straight to the center,” he repeated. “Alright.”

Sebastian had been quiet for a long time. Finally, he had murmured, “Trust me,” and his voice had been steady. “I know this place like the back of my hand.”

And Blaine had lifted their entwined hands, brushed his thumb over the back of Sebastian’s and said, “I do.”

 

* * *

 

They had been thirteen and newly betrothed.

Blaine had protested while his parents arranged the betrothal and signed the paperwork. He was a second son, but that didn’t mean his parents could marry him off as if he were chattel.

He protested, and his parents said nothing. They made the arrangements while Blaine protested. They arranged discussion and Blaine protested. They signed the paperwork, and Blaine shook his head while his mother cajoled him to just sign, it would be fine.

Blaine would meet Sebastian in the summer, when he returned to Ohio from Paris. They would get along, Blaine’s mother assured. It was only a betrothal, and one barely binding at that. At the very least, he would make a new friend.

Blaine had shouted, and when that proved fruitless, he locked himself away and played loud angry chords on his guitar, screaming until his throat was raw.

At least, his mother had said, you would make a new friend. Somebody who understood you. Somebody who you could trust.

Somebody Blaine could love.

When he signed on to Facebook, he had a friend request waiting for him. Sebastian Smythe, American School of Paris. He stared at it for a long time, seething, before he pressed reject.

This is also a lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/einoghujdp72m1v/btwa_chapter10.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/171177007441/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew-chapter-10)


	11. Chapter 11

Once upon a time, there was a boy who purchased some food without realizing they were pills of immortality. When he realized it, he vomited the pills into a lake, where a white snake ate the pills, and their fates became entwined.

Years later, many years later, when the snake had taken the form of a maiden, the boy and the white snake met again. They fell in love. They got married.

This was where Blaine wanted the story to end. With a marriage, a child, and happiness. This was where Blaine wanted the story to stop—before the boy discovered that he was married a snake and died of shock. Before the terrapin trapped the snake in a tower.

Before Sebastian disappeared.

 

* * *

 

At the top of a tower in the realm of the dead, Blaine stared at his husband. In all of the months that Sebastian had been gone, he had never truly considered what it would be like when they reunited. It had seemed so simple; find Sebastian, and then he would return.

Find Sebastian, and things would be better.

Sebastian still didn’t move forward. Blaine’s legs lurched, through empty air, his fingers closing on empty air. “Sebastian,” he said, again.

He remained, still, at the window.

“You’re mad at me.”

Sebastian said, “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“I came here for you.”

“Go away, Blaine.”

“No.” He took one step forward, and then another. Sebastian didn’t move, just watched him. “No. I—”

“Go away,” he snarled. He moved, then, an aborted jerk of his torso. “Wake up, Blaine. And don’t come back.”

Blaine’s breath hitched.

“Blaine,” Sebastian said, steadily. “You should never have come.”

“Will you jump?” he asked.

He looked out the window, and then back at Blaine.

“Will you come back?”

“To your dreams?”

Blaine nodded.

“No.”

He froze. He had never let himself consider if Sebastian didn’t want to return to him.

“Why not?” he asked, and he took another step forward, already halfway into the room. Sebastian still didn’t move. “Sebastian, I—”

He interrupted: “You ripped your soul from your body. You sent it to the realm of the dead. You’ve been searching for months. What a sacrifice you’ve made for your dead husband.”

Blaine’s mouth was very dry.

“But here’s the thing. I didn’t ask you to do any of it.”

 

* * *

 

He crept from his dorm, padding quietly through the familiar hallways until he found himself at the dorm shrine, the incense from the day burning slowly down, the room thick with agarwood smoke. Along the shelves by the shrine, the portraits of his classmates’ ancestors stared at him: some smiling, most somber. He easily found the triptych of Wes’ ancestors on the senior shelf, a smiling woman with David’s eyes and nose on the junior shelf, and then William Anderson, seriously staring back at him.

Blaine’s fingers closed around each other as he shifted on the balls of his feet before the shrine. William Anderson didn’t smile from where he was nestled among the dozens of other portraits.

He bowed.

He had rarely prayed, before Sebastian. Ancestors were supposed to give you guidance, and protect you, but Blaine had never felt the need to appease his ancestral spirits before Sebastian had come into his life. Sebastian had rewritten Blaine’s life, torn down the foundations of what he knew and built a new one on top of their marriage. Blaine went from dutiful son to dutiful husband, and along the way had found himself attending not just the personal shrine for Sebastian, but the dorm shrine where his ancestor’s portrait still lingered.

Not his ancestor, anymore.

He didn’t pray. Just stood there, with the embers on top of the incense flickering. He stood there for a long time until he began to shiver in his sweater, and then he turned and returned to his room.

When he woke up again, it was morning, and he left for class without lighting the incense in his room.

 

* * *

 

Thad eyed him suspiciously over breakfast, and then through all of Music Theory, where they were called upon to demonstrate choral harmonization with Trent and Nick. Blaine tried to ignore it—it wasn’t quite the baleful fury of post-Valentine’s day, but it was unsettling all the same.

“What?” Blaine finally asked, as they shuffled out of the music rooms and towards the social studies classrooms, detouring by the cafeteria. “Do I have something on my face?”

“You didn’t go back to your dorm,” Thad said.

“You didn’t,” Nick added, thoughtfully. “You always go back to your dorm between breakfast and first period.”

Blaine inhaled, sharply.

“Trouble in paradise?” Thad raised an eyebrow.

He shook his head. “It’s fine.”

“Right,” Thad said, eyebrow still raised. It wasn’t an agreement.

Jeff waved at them from where he was waiting in line to get coffee. They confirmed in their orders with him and meandered to their usual table; Blaine checked his phone, briefly. Kurt had, again, sent him a message.

Nick peered over his shoulder. “Don’t tell me that’s Kurt.”

“If you’re going to look over my shoulder, you can also read the sender’s name so you don’t have to ask rhetorical questions like that.” Blaine shoved his phone back into his pocket as Jeff came over with a tray of coffee.

“It was Kurt,” Nick confirmed to Thad as Jeff distributed their coffees.

Jeff frowned. “What did he want?”

“I didn’t check,” Blaine said, popping open the lid and letting the steam waft over his face to keep himself from saying anything else. He had forgone coffee during breakfast.

“I suppose it really is trouble in paradise if Blaine is feeling bad about texting Kurt.” Thad peered over his cup at him. “So?”

Blaine snapped the lid back onto the cup.

Nick peered at him. “What’s going on with you and your husband?”

“Nothing.” Blaine sipped and scalded the tip of his tongue.

Nick said, “Nothing, or _nothing_?”

“What’s even the difference?” Jeff asked.

“Nothing as in—” he waved a hand, “or nothing as in _nothing_ is going on?”

Jeff and Thad turned to stare at Blaine.

The tip of his tongue was already burnt, so he had little qualms about tipping the still hot coffee into his mouth.

“Is that why you let Kurt flirt with you?” Nick asked, fascinated. “Because you weren’t getting any from your husband?”

“Wha—I didn’t let him flirt with me!”

“Sure seems like that.” Thad drank his coffee before grimacing, popping open the lid to pour a pack of sugar in. “You didn’t do anything to discourage him.”

Blaine shook his head.

“No, no, no.” Nick waved a hand. “I want to know more about how nothing is happening with you and your husband.”

Thad nodded in agreement. So did Jeff.

He drank his coffee.

“Really,” Nick said. “I thought that you had all sorts of dreams about him.”

“Even if you aren’t getting any in them,” Jeff drawled.

Blaine choked. “What?”

Jeff shrugged. “You let Kurt flirt with you.”

“So that means that I—” He shook his head. “Why are we even discussing this?”

Thad consulted his watch. “Because we have ten more minutes before social studies?”

Blaine lurched to his feet. “We better get going.”

Nick shook his head. “It only takes two minutes to walk there…”

He ignored them, pouring more coffee into his burned mouth. “This way we don’t have to hurry.”

“We wouldn’t have to hurry anyways.” Jeff tilted his head. “Does this mean that you really didn’t do anything in your dreams?”

“Why do you care so much?”

“I’m a healthy teenage boy who’s interested in the sex life of my married classmate,” Jeff droned. His lip twisted in an expression not unlike Sebastian’s in one of their first dreams, amused and droll. “Also, I’m single and hoping that at least my _married friend_ is getting some.”

“There is nothing to get,” Blaine hissed, flushing, “because Sebastian hasn’t talked to me in over six months.”

Nick blinked.

Jeff gaped.

Thad said, very quietly, “Over six months?”

Blaine sat back down, slowly. His tongue felt slow, the tip of it raw from being burned, and he confessed, “Since August.”

“That’s before school started,” Thad said, something calculating on his face. “You’ve haven’t dreamed of him since _summer break_?”

“You’ve been making offerings to him all year,” Jeff said.

Nick said, quietly, “Didn’t you see your medium?”

Blaine stared at the top of his coffee. Some coffee had dripped out and made a ring along the raised ledge of the lid. He tilted it, watching as the coffee drifted around, clinging to the edge as if inevitably attracted to it instead of dripping down the center. “Yeah. Of course I did. It was one of the first things I did. He couldn’t find him either.”

“So what did you do?” Jeff looked fascinated.

He brought the coffee to his lips, sipping deeply. It had, in the past ten minutes, cooled enough that he could drink it without scalding his tongue. Or perhaps he had burned off all of his nerves, and there was nothing left to flinch from.

He said, “I went to find him.”

 

* * *

 

He had forgotten what it felt like: to have Sebastian’s eyes meet his, to hear Sebastian’s voice. He had forgotten what it felt like: to have Sebastian’s fingers around his wrist, against his back, pressed along the curve of his ankle.

He had forgotten what it felt like to be with Sebastian.

Blaine had stepped forward, and Sebastian sneered back, the expression familiar. Blaine recognized it now, the same expression from one of their first fights. It had been Christmas, and Blaine had fallen asleep after Christmas dinner with Sebastian’s relatives. It had been Blaine’s first family gathering as a Smythe.

Sebastian had been wearing green.

He wasn’t wearing green now. He was wearing a shirt and gray slacks that could have passed as part of the Dalton school uniform, but his feet were in plain dark socks instead of the loafers, and there was no blazer in sight, nor the striped tie or a sweater. He looked as if he had been in the tower for months.

He looked as if he didn’t care.

Blaine didn’t say anything. He nursed the ache that had been building for months, since that day in August when he had woken up and realized that Sebastian had left him. He had tamped down on it every time it threatened to rise, and this time he let it sweep over him in a tide of anguish and fury.

“You had to leave me,” he said, “without even telling me why.”

“Because you’re so good at that,” Sebastian retorted. “So good at talking. So good at telling me when something bothers you.”

“We were doing fine!” Blaine shouted.

“Fine?” He scoffed. “You call what we had fine?”

Sebastian had held his hand and pulled him into the labyrinth, and Blaine had trusted him.

“You think what we had was, in any way, shape, or form, _fine_?”

“It was fine,” Blaine said, and his mouth felt numb.

He swept an arm. “Tell me how this is fine! Tell me.”

“Just because you’re dead—”

“No, Blaine.” His eyes were very green. “This isn’t because of me. This isn’t because I died.”

“I—”

“This is you.”

He shook his head, his heart rapid against his ribs. There was a familiar ache, a familiar terror. He didn’t step back. Instead, he lifted his chin.

He wished that Sebastian’s expressions were a stranger’s. Over a year ago, he could have looked into Sebastian’s face and read nothing. Over a year ago, he could have blinked and Sebastian’s expressions would have sifted into something blurred and distant, his mind still learning the planes of his cheeks and the curve of his jaw. Now, Sebastian’s expressions were too familiar. He had learned what Sebastian looked like when he was happy. He had learned what Sebastian looked like when he laughed.

“You flinch every time I touch you. Husband,” he spat. “Maybe you should think about that.”

He stepped forward, his face so unlike his own, so eerily familiar, and Blaine flinched.

“Just like that,” he said.

 

* * *

 

That weekend, Blaine visited his parents, making the hour-and-a-half drive with just himself and the radio. He flipped through the stations before settling on NPR, the steady voices easing into the background.

“Blaine!” his mother exclaimed, when she had opened the door. “What are you doing here? Did I miss your call?”

He shook his head, letting his mother embrace him. “I just wanted to visit.”

“Did you tell your dad?”

He shook his head.

He let his mother usher him into the house, dropping his messenger bag in the foyer, shuffling into the study at his mother’s behest to mutter a perfunctory greeting.

“Blaine,” his father said. He stood, abandoning his papers to clap Blaine on the shoulder. “We weren’t expecting you.”

“I just wanted to visit,” he said, through a dry mouth.

“You’re always welcome here,” his mother said, drawing him away. His father retreated back to the study, as she went and began rummaging in the kitchen. “Have you eaten?”

“I ate breakfast before I came.”

“We’ll go out for lunch,” she decided. “I’ll cook dinner. What do you want?”

He shrugged.

He brought his laundry and his homework. His mother took his laundry, sending him to his room to work on his homework before they went out for lunch. Blaine had already finished most of it, spending Friday night in the library instead of joining the other sophomores in a mostly illicit Super Smash tournament in Nick and Jeff’s dorm, but he spread out his textbooks across his desk all the same.

He started on math.

He had barely finished copying down the first question into his notebook when he checked his phone. He flicked through his emails before putting it down to attempt the problem. A few lines in, he turned back to his phone. Slowly, arduously, he made his way through the first problem.

His mother called him for lunch.

His father drove, his mother in the passenger seat. Blaine sat behind his father, where he had sat when Cooper still lived with them. There would have been more leg room behind his mother, who pulled the passenger chair up solicitously, but Blaine folded himself behind his father partially on instinct and partially for the pressure against his knees.

It didn’t ache.

On the ride back, Blaine said, “Why did you pick Sebastian?”

His mother turned down the radio.

“Why did you pick a marriage at all?”

In the windshield mirror, his father and mother exchanged glances.

“Why did you keep it, after St. Ivers?”

His mother said, “What’s going on, Blaine?”

His father changed lanes. Blaine stared as the buildings eased closer, his perspective skewed as they hurtled forward while he stared out the side. “I went into the realm of the dead.”

His mother gasped, very quietly.

“I started months ago,” he said, “to find Sebastian.”

“Blaine,” his mother said, so softly.

“Blaine,” his father said, a warning.

The world rushed by, outside, faster than he could ever run, even if his knee had never shattered and then been stitched together again. He didn’t apologize.

He didn’t stop either.

“It smells of incense,” he said, not looking away from the fields as they blurred, each stalk blurring until there was nothing but a field of endless monochrome. “And even in the realm of the dead, I couldn’t find Sebastian.”

His mother said, “What are you talking about?”

His father said, “You shouldn’t have gone back.”

His mother asked, “You knew?”

Blaine turned. His mother was twisted in the passenger seat, her expression aghast. His father was still driving, but he glanced at the windshield mirror at him, quick flickers that he could mistake for checking the lane behind them.

Blaine didn’t look back. There was nothing to see behind them. He asked, “Why did you ask me to marry Sebastian’s ghost?”

 

* * *

 

Tala called him not long after they returned home.

“Did my mom call you?” Blaine asked, plugging his earbuds into his phone as he rolled a pencil in his hands.

“You went back into the realm of the dead,” she said, tinny and tired. “Did you at least tell Albert?”

He looked down at the paper. He hadn’t gotten more than three problems into his homework. “Yes,” he said.

She made a quiet sound, and then yawned. “Your parents are worried.”

“It’s over,” he said.

There was a pause, long enough that Blaine wondered if the call had dropped. Then, Tala said, “What do you mean, over?”

Blaine said, “Seeing Sebastian. It’s over.”

His pencil traced a circle onto his desk as he rolled it through the pre-punched paper. He wouldn’t have gotten away with it in the Dalton library, but here, on the desk he had used since he was a child, he didn’t care. He drew circles in silence, each repetition darkening the mark on the wooden table, Tala on the other end of the line slowly processing.

Tala said, “You’ve given up?”

“He told me to go away.”

There was, again, the silence that sounded like the call had dropped. Then she said, “You’ve talked to him.”

“End of February,” Blaine confirmed. In a tower in the realm of the dead. It was mid-March, now. “It was a long dream.”

Climbing the tower alone could have been a dream on its own. But time had twisted, spiraling like a mobius strip and the longer Blaine had walked the longer the dream lasted. Up the endless stairs and through the door to Sebastian. It had felt like days, and he had woken up after only scant hours of sleep.

“And you saw Sebastian,” Tala said.

“He told me to leave. He said I should never have gone. He—”

Into the silence, Blaine said, “He wanted to leave me.”

 

* * *

 

At dinner, his mother said, “Blaine.”

He looked up.

“Blaine, we need you to understand.”

“I understand,” Blaine said. He poked the chicken with his fork. “It’s fine.”

His parents exchanged familiar glances.

“You have to understand,” his mother began. She stopped, looked at Blaine’s father, and then said. “We made the best choices we could.”

They had done everything they could to ensure Blaine would be successful in his future. His parents, who hadn’t known what to do when Cooper dropped out of college and moved to LA to become an actor, who hadn’t known what to do when Blaine had come out as gay, had always done the best they could. They helped Cooper pay for an apartment.

They arranged a betrothal for Blaine.

Marriage was expected. Marry for companionship. Marry for love. Marry to join two respectable fortunes together. What else would his parents have done? Blaine was gay, and here was a chance to give him a future.

Sebastian had been his age. He had been from a good family. They could have met, one summer, and twisted their fingers together under the sun, their heads tilted into its gleam. They could have become friends, the weight of their betrothal anchoring them to the sand even as the tides swept higher and higher.

“After St. Ivers,” his mother said. “After St. Ivers.”

She didn’t say: “After you almost died.”

Blaine heard it, all the same. He had spent less than a year at St. Ivers—barely three months, before he had taken a friend to a dance and woken up in a hospital. It had been easy to divide his life into three neat segments: before his betrothal, after his marriage, and the years in-between. It had been easy, but it had not been true.

There was a gaping chasm where St. Ivers existed, and this time he stepped forward.

“Did you ask me to marry Sebastian’s ghost because I almost died?”

His parents were very quiet.

“If I married a ghost,” he said, “then I would never be caught at a party with another boy.”

His mother said, “We never asked you to.”

Blaine didn’t say anything.

His father said, “We did this for your own good.”

A thousand melodies dug their way into his throat, and he clamped his teeth down to keep them from spilling out. A thousand melodies and a thousand harmonies, and Blaine closed his throat and clenched his fingers so they would never come out.

“Why Sebastian?” he asked, instead.

His mother set her fork down. “Blaine,” she said, and her voice was quiet and upset, “Why does it matter?”

Why Sebastian, out of all of the boys in the world?

He said, “Why did you pick him?”

“There was very little picking,” his father said. “You were old enough for a betrothal. You had just come out. Alexander was looking for a match. You were both about the same age, and he said Sebastian enjoyed dancing, so your hobbies meshed as well.” He didn’t put down his utensils. He kept eating. “That was it, Blaine. We gave you ample opportunities to end it when you were older. It wasn’t an ultimatum, just a safety net.”

His parents had picked him up from school. There had been a pile of papers on the kitchen counter, and his mother had told him to sign them. They could have done it traditionally, with red ink and a wooden seal. Then, his parents could have signed the forms for him, by proxy. Instead, Blaine had painstakingly signed his name in cursive on each of the lines, resentment thrumming like the beat of a song. He had eaten dinner and each gnash of his teeth was the crash of cymbals, snarling in his ear. He had gone to bed and when had woken up the song had yet to fade.

He had attended a dance at St. Ivers, and when his head hit the pavement everything had finally fallen silent.

He said, to his parents, “I know. It’s fine. I just needed to know.”

 

* * *

 

His mother knocked on his door that night, when Blaine was flipping through the Warbler chat on his phone. They were taking a bus to the venue, though a few of the upperclassmen were driving so they could visit home afterwards. Blaine confirmed he would be taking the bus, and then flipped to the sophomore chat to check on whether or not anybody else was struggling with the pre-calculus homework.

His mother said, “Blaine? Have you slept yet?” and Blaine dropped his phone into the blankets. She cracked the door open, meeting Blaine’s eyes. “Can I come in?”

He nodded.

She sat on the edge of his bed, her hands in her lap. He itched to pick up his phone, but instead he left it, screen still on, a half-composed message still lingering. She sat very straight, and then she bowed forward, just a little, and said, “About Sebastian.”

Blaine froze.

“We were so scared,” his mother said, quiet. “When you came out, we were so scared. We didn’t know what to do. Cooper was moving to LA, and you.”

Blaine swallowed.

“Maybe we made a mistake,” she said. She didn’t look at him, instead focusing on the desk strewn with Blaine’s books. It had been empty for most of the year, except for the occasional visit. It used to always be messy. “Maybe. But you have to understand where we were coming from.”

He did.

“And Blaine,” she said. “You never said anything.”

“I know,” he said. He didn’t say: _I didn’t know how_.

“After St. Ivers,” his mother said, “and you were in the hospital—” She inhaled. “You don’t remember—”

“I do,” he said. The bat had broken his shoulder, his ribs, and his knees. He had passed out, woken up in the hospital struggling to breathe. He had caught pneumonia shortly afterwards. His parents had wondered if he would die. Blaine had hoped to die.

“Sebastian’s father called.”

Blaine blinked.

“He recommended Dalton.”

The blanket was eerily unfamiliar. He had laid under it for months, convalescing. He stared at the striped pattern; for several months he had thought he would never forget what it felt like, lying in this bed. It had taken only a year for him to forget. “I didn’t know.”

The physical therapy had taken months. He had been lucky, they said, after he was walking again. He didn’t ask if he would be able to dance again, the same way he hadn’t asked if his ribs would let him sing again. Instead, he had tried studying from online curriculum and hoped that he wouldn’t have to retake his freshman year. But the weeks recovering had taken their toll, and when summer had started, he had already known that he would be starting at Dalton as a freshman again.

His mother said, “We were so relieved,” she said. She finally turned to Blaine, and she said, “Blaine.”

“I know,” he said, his hands shaking.

“We only wanted you to be safe.”

“I know,” he said, and he did. “I know.”

 

* * *

 

Blaine drove back to Dalton the next day.

He stopped at Sebastian’s house, letting himself in with the key he had been given. He stopped by the kitchen, fetching a pear and taking it with him to the shrine, where he lit a stick of incense before Sebastian’s photo. Linda Smythe, twelve years old, smiled out from one of the many framed portraits in the back.

The house was silent as he climbed the stairs and turned down the hallway to Sebastian’s room. The walls were familiar, cream paint and dark woods, and he let his fingers trail behind him as he turned into Sebastian’s bedroom, catching on the doorframe.

He knelt before the desk, pulling open the bottom drawer and unearthing the binder of Sebastian’s music. He flipped it open, taking in the directions written in Sebastian’s own hand.

He could learn to do this. Blaine understood music, and it would be a transition to learn to sing with his body instead of with his voice, but he could. He could take Sebastian’s music and perform it with the lucky knee that had healed.

Blaine’s fingers curled on the pages, just barely crumpling the edges.

He could burn the folder and send the ashes to the realm of the dead.

He tucked the binder into his bag and went downstairs. The incense was smoldering in the sand, filling the hallways with fragrant agarwood. He hesitated, turning to glance behind him; Sebastian smiled faintly back behind polished glass.

He locked the door behind him and continued to Dalton.

 

* * *

 

“Regionals is in a week, folks!” Wes shouted, tapping his gavel on the table. “Five minute break, and then we’ll run through the setlist once without stopping.”

Nick groaned, flinging himself onto a nearby chair. Jeff followed at a more sedate pace, and Blaine settled down close-by. Thad was already engaged in a furious whispered conversation with David and Wes. He glanced over at them, and Nick made an appropriately innocent expression back as he sipped his water.

Blaine closed his eyes, listening to the low murmurs broken by raucous laughter as the Warblers dispersed among themselves, water bottles in hand as they sipped, carefully.

“Hey,” Kurt said.

Blaine’s eyes opened.

The others were frowning at Kurt. Politely, of course. Nick’s mouth remained etched in a polite smile, his eyes narrowed, and Jeff stared flatly at him once before turning to his phone. Blaine didn’t have the energy to ask them to stop. Instead, he glanced at Wes, who was still in fevered discussion with David and Thad.

“Hi, Kurt,” he said.

Nick’s mouth twitched.

Blaine glanced at them, both of them now pretending to be engrossed in their phones. Kurt stood, stiffly, chin jerked up. “Can we talk?”

Blaine stood. “Let’s go somewhere else,” he said.

Kurt followed him to a corner. Another week, Blaine would have risked leaving the room, but this close to Sectionals, he was sure that Wes wasn’t going to be letting him out of his sight, even if he left the door open and informed him beforehand. Instead, in the corner furthest from the other sophomores, he turned to Kurt and said, “What’s up?”

“You didn’t respond to my text,” he said.

He touched his phone in his pocket. “I’ve had a lot of my mind.”

“It’s been four days.” Kurt blinked, rapidly. “I sent several.”

Blaine said, “I’ve been busy.”

“Not too busy to respond to the Warbler thread.” He pulled his own phone out of his pocket, navigating to the thread and reading: “’I’ll take the bus there. Put me down for a maybe on the ride back.’” He looked up, mouth pressed firmly tight.

His fingers curled around his phone. “What’s this about?”

He said, “Are you avoiding me?”

Blaine inhaled, and his ribs suddenly ached. “I’ve had a lot on my mind,” he said. “It’s not personal.”

He frowned, and then said, “So, you’re free for coffee later this week?”

He stared.

Wes called, “Break’s over! Blaine, let’s go.”

He turned to go to Wes. Kurt caught the sleeve of his blazer, and Blaine stared down at it. His fingers had curled into his palm, involuntarily.

“Coffee?” Kurt asked, again. “I think we need to talk.”

Blaine shook his head. He forced his hand to relax. “Sure.”

 

* * *

 

Kurt lingered as rehearsal ended, all but tapping his foot impatiently as Blaine met with Wes and the rest of the council.

“Plans?” Thad asked, eyeing where Kurt was poorly attempting interest in a painting by the door.

Blaine shrugged. “He wanted to get coffee,” he said in an undertone.

“He can wait,” Wes said briskly. “We have work to do.” They spread Blaine’s folder of sheet music over the table, and Blaine made notes as Wes pointed out what to work on. David leaned over Blaine’s shoulder, adding his insights. They worked through the entire setlist for Regionals, identifying the points where Blaine would absolutely need to take a breath, and finalizing where they would have to simplify the choreography for Blaine’s knee and breath control.

Kurt stayed for the entire twenty minutes.

Sebastian’s folder rested, heavy, in his bag. He had toyed with bringing it out and asking David for his advice. But now, with Kurt waiting, he found himself packing away the Warbler assignments, tucking them next to Sebastian’s binder of music, and turning with a promise to practice before rehearsal tomorrow.

Kurt sniffed as Blaine approached. “I guess not even you’re perfect,” he muttered.

Blaine blinked.

Wes, behind them, said, “Kurt, did you have something to say?”

Kurt raised his voice. “I was just surprised Blaine had anything he needed to work on, seeing as he gets all of the solos anyways.”

“Blaine earns them,” David said, coolly.

Thad said nothing.

Blaine stopped. He glanced at the council, arrayed at the table as if preparing for battle, and then at Kurt, at the door. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked. His fingers closed around the strap of his bag.

Kurt paused, and then his face rearranged into contrition. “No,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you about the party you skipped.”

“That was two weeks ago.” Blaine didn’t move forward.

He said, “You just bailed so suddenly. I was worried.”

Blaine said, “I’m sorry to worry you.” He still didn’t move.

He thought of Sebastian, standing at the window of the tower, not moving forward, but not moving back either. He had never been locked away, waiting for Blaine. He had always been able to leave. But he had stayed, and he had waited, and—

Why did you marry him?

Kurt said, “Blaine?”

He said, “I’m fine.”

 

* * *

 

The next day, they ran through their setlist in front of the student body, clean. Even Wes didn’t have anything to say, slapping them on the back affectionately and ordering them not to relax too much as they filed out of the senior commons for dinner.

Still exhilarated, Blaine fell in step with the other sophomores, joining them in the cafeteria as they ate, and then retiring to the library where they attempted to work on their English paper due next week.

That night, just before curfew, he left the others and went to the dorm shrine.

Wes was sitting in one of the chairs against the wall, legs splayed out before him. There was a red metal pot on the floor beside him, a bag full of paper money, and an unopened box of incense. He glanced at Blaine as he pushed the door open, and then said, “Courtyard’s empty, if you want.”

Blaine’s breath hitched.

Wes scooped up the bag, nodding at the pot. Blaine picked it up, his fingers curling around the vents cut into it. The hallways were empty and quiet as they made their way out.

Wes said, “What did Kurt want?”

Blaine shrugged.

“Yesterday,” Wes clarified. “He was in a snit, today, going through the motions when we were running through our setlist. Thought about calling him out about it.”

Blaine shook his head. “He’s mad I didn’t go to a party with him.”

“Is that it?”

Wes leaned against the door, holding it open. Outside, the courtyard was cold, the warmth of spring not quite settling in. Blaine placed the pot down several feet away from the building, and rolled newspaper from Wes’ bag into logs to start the fire with. Wes clicked a lighter, rolling it beneath his thumb before he lit a newspaper and fed it to the pot.

The paper caught. Blaine admitted, “He’s jealous.”

Wes raised an eyebrow.

Blaine shucked the plastic from the box of incense. “He called us ‘Blaine and the Pips’.”

“Because you have the competition solos.”

Blaine shrugged.

“Does it bother you?” Wes riffled the paper money with his fingers. “We wouldn’t give you a solo if we didn’t think you deserved it.”

“I know,” Blaine said.

“Kurt’s not bad,” Wes said. “He’s got a good shot at solos next year, if he can set aside his jealousy and be a team player. You don’t have to worry; David will keep an eye out for that.”

Blaine shrugged. “I don’t know if he’ll stay.”

“Do you want him to?”

He said, “I don’t know.”

Wes peeled off a handful of paper money, before feeding it to the fire. The smoke curled, thick and acrid in the clean air.

Blaine watched it waft, high into the air, until it dispersed, so thinly as to not be seen. Blaine confessed, quietly, “Sebastian left a binder of music.”

Wes fed another handful of papers.

“It has choreography instructions.” He took a deep breath. “I thought about burning it.”

Another plume of smoke rose into the sky.

Blaine said, “He’d want it.”

Wes murmured, “Are you burning it to give it to him, or because you don’t want to see it?”

The paper crinkled within his fist.

Wes unwrapped the incense, sliding a stick out of the box. He lit it, inhaled the agarwood, and said, “He’s your husband.” A thin taper of smoke curled in the air. “For better or worse,” he quoted, mouth curling up at the end.

“You’re good at this,” Blaine said. He let the papers fall into the fire, crumbled into paper blossoms.

Wes shrugged. “I’m inheriting the temple.”

Blaine laughed, dryly.

Wes said, “Burn it.” He held the incense between his hands. “Burn it, and never think of it again. Would it make you feel better?”

It was cold. Blaine curled a hand around his ribs, as if to hold his body heat within him. His breath hitched underneath his fingers.

Wes smiled. “Or don’t.”

 

* * *

 

The night before Regionals, Blaine dreamed.

He was standing in the realm of the dead, grass brushing against his ankles. Before him stood a tower, and at the top, Sebastian stared down.

Blaine said nothing, and Sebastian said nothing in return. They stood, entire worlds apart, the grass soft beneath Blaine’s feet, the stone cold beneath Sebastian’s hands. The air was warm and still, and when Blaine inhaled there was no pain.

This far away, Blaine could barely make out Sebastian’s facial features. But he could read the stubborn set to his head and the stiffness in his shoulders. He had shared nine months of dreams with his husband; he had learned to read Sebastian’s body language, just as Sebastian had learned to read his.

He stood, in the field before Sebastian, and said nothing. He stood and stared, and when his knee began to ache from the pressure, he closed his eyes and let the dream end.

 

* * *

 

The tension was palpable backstage. Blaine sat and flipped through his phone, browsing the internet as he listened to their setlist on headphones. Wes was coaching the freshmen through breathing exercises—half meditative and half a warm-up—and Thad and David were assisting. The rest of them sat scattered throughout the green room, left to their own devices.

Kurt had disappeared when they had arrived, presumably to greet his old classmates. He had tried to make eye contact, and Blaine had turned to his phone in response.

Days ago, the bird Pavarotti had died, and Kurt had sang a quiet tribute before the Warblers. Blaine had studied the all-black ensemble and thought of Sebastian. He had worn white at the funeral and wedding, stiff silk crepe wrapped tight around his chest and limbs. After: after the banquet and funeral feast, after Blaine had said his goodbyes to his parents, after Sebastian’s father had driven them back to the Smythe house, Blaine had stripped out of his funeral suit and wedding suit both and stuffed the outfit in Sebastian’s closet so he would never have to look at it again.

Blaine stared down at his phone. Kurt had sung, beautifully, for Pavarotti; Blaine had never sung for Sebastian. The binder of Sebastian’s music still sat, fully intact, on his desk at Dalton. He hadn’t burned it, but he hadn’t opened it either. He had left it on his desk, attending rehearsals even as the tension in Wes’ shoulders wound tighter and his throat tightened.

Wes had found him, the day after Kurt had sung. He had taken Blaine to the side. “Do you want to sing, at Regionals?”

Blaine had stared. “Do I—” He shook his head. “It’s a little late, isn’t it? I committed…”

Wes had said, “I have never doubted your commitment to the Warblers,” and something in his voice had sounded like Sebastian. “I never will.”

Blaine had closed his eyes.

“But I know this has been a hard year for you. The soloist position is yours, Blaine. But only if you want it.”

His phone vibrated. He fumbled with it; his mother sent him a text—a picture of his parents seated in the auditorium, next to Alexander Smythe, Albert Smythe, and—

“Ready?”

He looked up at Thad. His legs remained planted on the floor, unable to move. Around them, the other boys laughed and shoved each other in nervous anticipation. Blaine remained rooted, unable to breathe even as Wes opened the door and the others filed out.

Thad didn’t move with them, just stood and waited.

Slowly, Blaine blinked.

He nodded back. His grip was firm as he hauled Blaine out of the chair, squeezed his shoulder, and said, “Break a leg.”

Blaine blinked back.

“Just not my fiancé’s.”

The laugh surprised him, air rushing into his lungs. “God, Thad,” he began.

Thad smirked back. “Better?”

Blaine shook his head, huffing in disbelief.

“Still nervous?”

The air was cool and sweet as it rushed into his lungs in a deep breath. He dropped his phone into his bag. “I can sing.”

“Good.”

Blaine nodded back. “Let’s do this.”

On stage, before the faceless crowd, Blaine opened his mouth and let himself become music, buoyant and resolute.

 

* * *

 

They didn’t win. Blaine closed his eyes to the familiar disappointment as Wes shook hands with the McKinley staff advisor, offered platitudes to the freshmen, and sorted them into those who were taking the bus back to Dalton, and those that were meeting up with their parents. As they tumbled from backstage, Blaine didn’t have to search to find his parents in the lobby, talking to Sebastian’s father, Albert, and—

“Blaine,” Mrs. Langley greeted. “You sounded lovely. It’s such a shame about the results.”

He stared.

His mother said, “You remember Mrs. Langley, of course.”

He nodded.

She said, “I’m very glad to hear you perform.”

The Dalton blazer pulled tight against his shoulders, and he curled them forward to ease the strain. “Thanks for coming,” he said, politely, to avoid saying anything else.

“I wouldn’t have missed it,” she said. Her hand was warm through the wool blazer as she patted his forearm. “We miss your voice every day, Blaine.”

His fingers of his other hand curled into his palm. “Oh.”

His mother said, “St. Ivers doesn’t have a show choir, does it?”

Blaine shook his head. Not a show choir. But it had a performance choir, and a string ensemble, and Blaine had been active in both, sailing through the summer auditions. He had only been a freshman, but Mrs. Langley had pulled him aside in October, making him demonstrate the runs of the piece they had been working on. Let Blaine be an example to you all, she had said.

_Think you’re special, Anderson?_

He blinked, furiously, and the memory drained like the tides receding from the shore. Mrs. Langley was talking to his parents, gushing over Blaine’s talent, how she had _known_ , even in St. Ivers, that Blaine’s voice was something special. “You must be so proud,” she said.

“We are,” his mother affirmed.

Sebastian’s father was silent.

“You were amazing on stage,” Mrs. Langley said, patting Blaine’s arm again. “I didn’t expect you to have all of the solos! And you only a junior!”

Blaine opened his mouth to correct her, and then closed it again. He shrugged instead. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

_You’re amazing. Your solos are breathtaking. They’re also numerous._

He blinked away the scorn and jealousy in Kurt’s voice, too easy to remember with Mrs. Langley, with St. Ivers, before him. “The Warbler council picks who gets to solo for each song,” he said, finally. “I got a few this year, and we ended up picking these songs for Regionals.”

“Well, it’s well deserved,” she said.

“Thanks,” Blaine rasped, twisting to make eye-contact with his father. His father nodded, sternly, back. “We didn’t win, though.” He looked away.

Sebastian’s father stepped forward, his hand large and firm on Blaine’s shoulder. “Some things are out of your control.” he said, his voice familiar. “You did well, regardless of the result.”

Blaine’s breath hitched.

“You sing…”

_You sing like a dream, and I never want to wake up._

Sebastian’s father said, “You sing very well, Blaine. You should be proud of your accomplishment today.”

His mouth felt numb, as he tried to lift the edges into a smile. “We didn’t win,” he repeated, Sebastian’s words feeling like they were from a lifetime ago. They were, in a way—Blaine had torn his soul out of his body, rebuilt his bones, and travelled through the realm of the dead in the months since Sebastian had spoken to him, calling him magnetic, praising his voice.

Albert offered, “I liked you guys better than the other group. I thought you sang well.”

“Thanks,” Blaine said. He closed his eyes, and he could see Sebastian, standing before him, hands tucked in his pockets, mouth smirking even as his eyes were fond. Sebastian had pressed him to audition for a solo, Sebastian had taken him by the hand and pulled him forward, Sebastian had stood before him, in a tower in the realm of the dead, and drawn a line between them and dared Blaine to cross it.

“Like a dream,” Blaine mouthed, as his parents and Sebastian’s father engaged Mrs. Langley in conversation. “Like a dream, and I never want to wake up.”

Albert tapped him on the shoulder. “You alright?”

Blaine smiled reassuringly back, and this time it felt easy, his muscles sliding underneath skin seamlessly. “I’m fine,” he said. “A little upset about losing, but fine.”

Albert nodded back. “Alright.”

Blaine turned back to the conversation, engaging in small talk with Mrs. Langley before they parted: Blaine, his parents, and the Smythes going to dinner and Mrs. Langley driving back to her house. He let himself smile, let himself sink into the conversation, let himself think of the binder of music sitting on his desk at Dalton.

He thought of Sebastian, the crumbled suit still in the closet, and the distance between the ground and the sky.

 

* * *

 

Blaine found himself, with the other Warblers, adrift as the week started. Wes gave them a week to mourn, and the juniors responded by flinging themselves wholeheartedly into their studies while the seniors prepped for upcoming AP exams with something like lackadaisical anxiety.

“Senioritis,” Thad sneered, voice twisted like he couldn’t decide what to feel. “Remind me to never let it get that bad when we’re seniors.”

“Are you jealous of them or disappointed?” Jeff asked over their math homework.

“Both.”

He eventually left the other sophomore quibbling over their social studies paper and braved the junior commons to find David, who was only too glad to take a break, especially when he found out that Blaine had vaunted time in the private practice room with the baby grand.

“What’s this?” David asked, as Blaine placed down Sebastian’s binder on the piano bench.

Blaine stared down at it. “It’s Sebastian’s.”

He recoiled. “Your husband’s?”

Blaine nodded.

“Blaine,” David began.

“He danced,” Blaine said. “I want you to help me.” He swallowed, reaching down to open the binder to the first page, Sebastian’s handwriting scrawled across the music. “Teach me his music.”

David stared down at it. “Jeff’s a better dancer,” he began. “We’re probably going to give him choreography next year.”

Blaine shook his head. “I don’t want to learn how to dance.” He took a deep breath. “I know the arrangements are a group effort, but I know that you did a lot of the work, and a lot of the choreography we’ve done all year.” He touched the penciled instructions with a finger, and the graphite smeared as he pulled away. “I want learn this music. And then I want you to help me arrange it for two. Please.”

“A duet?”

Blaine nodded. “A pas de deux.”

 

* * *

 

The week after the Warblers lost at Sectionals, Kurt found him at the Dalton coffee stand. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, despite classes having just ended less than an hour ago, and somehow Blaine couldn’t muster surprise.

“Are you going back to McKinley?”

Kurt stared, flatly, back. “I haven’t decided,” he said. “Karofsky’s still there.”

Blaine nodded. “He’s the one who bullied you.”

“He attacked me.”

Blaine nodded. “He plays football, right?”

Kurt nodded, a tense little jerk of the head.

Blaine stared down at his medium drip. The warmth of it seeped into his fingers, the fragrance filling his lungs. He had offered coffee again this morning, leaving it before Sebastian’s portrait before attending his classes. It had gone cold throughout the day, and Blaine had poured it down the drain before coming out to buy a fresh cup.

“You must miss your friends,” he said, finally.

Kurt nodded, tightly. “I do. And, they’re going to Nationals. With original songs, to boot.”

Blaine nodded.

“I don’t want it to seem like I’m jumping ship because we lost,” he added, hastily.

Blaine said, “I don’t think any of us think that of you.”

Kurt smiled back. He glanced at his cup, before looking away. “Look. Blaine. My friends, they all really like you.”

He said, “They’ve barely met me.”

“They’ve seen you enough. And, you know, they’re putting on a fundraising concert. For Nationals. I was wondering if you’d like to go. With me.”

His fingers locked around the mug. “Kurt, I’m married.”

“You said that your husband’s dead. You have to move on sometime, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t work like that.” He shook his head. “Kurt,” he began. He shook his head again. “I’m sorry. You should go though. Watch your friends perform.” He stepped back. “Maybe some of the other Warblers would be interested. I have to meet with David.”

Kurt’s mouth thinned out, but he didn’t stop Blaine. He stood, very still. “Just.” He took a deep breath. “Just tell me something.”

Blaine paused.

“Did I ever have a chance?”

He inhaled, sharply. It was spring, but the air was still cool enough for jackets and scarves, and Kurt was wearing a green one that matched with the rest of his outfit. It wasn’t the exact shade, but it was close enough to the sharp gaze that Christmas evening. He closed his eyes, his heart beating a steady andante, the tempo of the music he had been learning. He let the duet sink into his bones, rest in his throat, suffuse his skin.

“Don’t you know,” Blaine said, very quietly. “I love Sebastian.”

 

* * *

 

Once upon a time, there was a white snake that lived in a vast lake. It had always dreamed of being immortal, and one day, falling from the surface, were the very pills of immortality that would give her what she wanted.

She ate the pills. She swallowed them down and gained hundreds of years of magical powers. She became immortal, and in doing so, forged a bond between her soul and the boy’s.

The boy discovered she was a snake, and still loved her. The boy died, came back to life, and still loved her. The boy was captured, was locked away, and still—still—loved her.

She was locked in a tower. She was trapped. She still—still—loved the boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/3y84fd4gmmsymvf/btwa_chapter11.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/171436565346/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew-chapter-11)


	12. Chapter 12

Spring came, with an earnest rush of pollen that took out a third of the Warblers. Wes started carrying a virtual pharmacy in over-the-counter allergy medication and David meticulously monitored how many dosages were doled out. Jeff turned out particularly sensitive to Benadryl and spent three rehearsals in a daze after taking a single dose. Jared went through Wes’ entire stash before he invested in a netipot and a prescription from his doctor.

Competition season may have ended for the Warblers, but there were still dozens of off-campus performances, along with a handful of on-campus performances to prepare for. The sophomores and freshmen took the opportunity to switch off on solos to practice for next year, and Blaine found himself back in the tenor section next to Wes.

Rehearsals had taken a decidedly relaxed slant; Wes still had perfect pitch, David was still fastidious about his harmonies, and Thad was still a bastion of support among the lower harmonies. But they started late and finished early, the freshmen eager to try their hand out at the melody, the seniors eager to impart the last nuggets of wisdom down before graduation. Blaine made his way to David after each rehearsal, and they spread Sebastian’s music across the tables and arranged it for two voices, two bodies: two people.

Blaine lit the incense in his room and let the agarwood drift out the open window.

The air was sweet and cool, the morning sun warm on his cheeks as he levered the window open and peered down at the lacrosse team heading to morning practice. Sebastian’s music was spread across his dorm desk; he had stayed up late, playing the melody and harmonies in his head before finally crawling into bed. He had slept deeply, without dreams.

He still had a lot to do.

The shrine was clean, and empty. Blaine would fetch an extra cup of coffee when he went to breakfast, a pear from the fruit basket, and bring them back to his dorm before fetching his bag and heading to English. He would return during his lunch break to change out his books, to empty the cold coffee and check on the incense. 

For now, Blaine just sat on the edge of his bed and watched the smoke rise.

 

* * *

 

Kurt transferred back to McKinley the next week. The Warblers had a small goodbye party—David picked up several pies from a nearby bakery in Westerville, and they forewent rehearsals in lieu of French silk pie and a decadent caramel apple pecan. Blaine split a slice of each with Thad, cutting the generous wedges in half.

“Kurt.” Wes stood, after the pie had been doled out, raising his glass of water in a toast. “Dalton’s going to miss you.”

“You were a great addition to the Warblers,” David added. “We’re very sad to see you go.”

Kurt sat up, very straight, his legs crossed. “Oh,” he said. He put down his plate, the pie still untouched. 

“To the best of luck in your future,” Wes said. “Thank you, Kurt, for everything you’ve done with us.”

The Warblers chorused in agreement.

Blaine had thought about organizing a song or something to send Kurt off with. He had gotten as far as flipping through the list of songs they had prepared last year, but had never practiced this year, before he had stopped. It probably would have sent the wrong message.

He swallowed around sweet caramel, tart apple, and the crunch of pecan. It really was a good pie. 

Kurt was clearing his throat, rising to his feet and brushing off his blazer. “I just wanted to say that it’s been such a pleasure being part of the Warblers. I mean—”

Blaine ate another bite.

“You made me feel so welcome. Like I was really part of the group from the beginning.”

 _Blaine and the Pips_. Blaine forked a piece of apple.

“And, you know, I really regret that I can’t go to Nationals with you guys.”

Thad, beside him, stiffened.

“It’s been lovely here.”

“Thank you,” Thad said coolly. “We’ll miss you too.”

Kurt stared back, chin held high and mouth pressed into a smile. Blaine, beside Thad, caught the edges of Kurt’s gaze and looked away.

He tried the French silk pie. The chocolate mousse melted in his mouth as the crust crumbled on his tongue. It was delicious.

He took another bite.

 

* * *

 

In his dreams, he walked along a shoreline, his toes curling in the warm sand, the water cool as it lapped against his ankles. The tide rumbled in steady breaths, and his lungs were full of sharp, salty air.

He walked forward even as the sea receded, leaving damp sand that left the barest impression of footprints pooled with water. The tide ebbed, the shore spread, and Blaine walked forward, step by steady step, until the water rushed back in a torrent, surging through him, chest-deep.

He stood, and let the water flow around him, sudden and cold, droplets splashing against his cheeks as the waves dashed across his chest.

The water retreated, and he stumbled forward, caught in its current, stepping deeper and deeper into the ocean until he was bobbing, his legs treading water, too deep to find purchase in the sand. He stayed there for a long time, buffeted by the tides, yet anchored deep in the water.

He turned, and in long steady strokes, swam to the shore. Finally, his feet found purchase, and he dug divots into the damp sand with his toes as he walked to high ground. The tide rushed over the sand, and when he turned, it was dark and damp and smooth, as if he had never been there. High above the tide, he watched as the water foamed white and opaque as it flowed over the sand, ebbed clear and thin as it receded, over and over, carrying grains of sand as they eroded away cliffs, carving away sweeps of rock.

He stood until the tide receded. When he woke up, his breathing was as long and steady as the tides, and there was no terror. 

 

* * *

 

Once a week, Blaine was on dorm shrine duty. For 45 minutes, he emptied the pot of incense, clearing out the ashes and filling it with fresh, clean, sand. He dusted the cabinet, and sorted through the photos that lined it, fishing out the ones that had fallen over the course of the day. Finally, he swept the floor, bundling the dust with the rest of the trash to take out before he headed to Warbler practice. 

He opened the door. Wes was leaning against the wall by the door, bag slung over his shoulder, phone in hand as if he had nothing better to do. With competition season over, and college acceptances in, it was a more likely circumstance than not.

“Hey,” Blaine said. He hefted the bag of trash, and Wes followed him out the dorms to the dumpster. “I’m not late.”

Wes shook his head. “Just wanted to talk.” He slid his hands into his pockets, tipping his face into the weak sunlight. Spring had arrived, officially, but the sun still felt thin like it was winter, sometimes. “You seem distracted, lately.”

“Competition season is over.” Blaine threw the bag into the dumpster and turned to head back to the main building for rehearsal with Wes. “I don’t have any solos in the upcoming performances.” He swallowed. They had discussed Blaine stepping aside after the competition season had ended to let the freshmen and other sophomores practice singing lead vocals. Blaine hadn’t had any reason to argue; he was still a shoe-in for soloist next year. It had been a shift, going back to harmony, but he had yet to mess up too badly.

“It wasn’t a judgement,” Wes assured him. “Just an observation.”

The birds were twittering as they wended their way back to the main building and towards the senior commons for rehearsal. Wes stopped them just outside the room, pulling him aside even as the other Warbler meandered in in organized disarray.

“This isn’t because Kurt transferred, is it?”

Blaine gaped, before he shook his head. “No. It doesn’t have anything to do with Kurt.”

“Not thinking about following him, are you?”

He grinned, wryly. “I married Sebastian.”

Wes studied his face, a long, thoughtful, glance that lasted as long as it took for a gaggle of freshmen to scurry into the senior commons. “You did,” he said. “You also drove for hours at Kurt’s beck and call, earlier in the year.”

“I know.” Blaine took a deep breath, in through his nose, his lungs expanding as his ribs shifted painlessly under his skin. “I’m not going to do that again.”

“Had a falling out?”

Blaine shook his head. His exhale was loud in the now-empty hallway. “It’s been a long year,” he explained. “But I think I understand myself better, now.”

Wes raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve been working on a personal project,” Blaine explained. 

Wes nodded. He studied Blaine’s face for a little longer, before he said, “Rehearsal is starting.”

Blaine nodded, turning to head in.

“It’s good,” he said, quietly enough that Blaine had to strain to hear it, “That you’re singing even when you don’t have to.”

He froze.

Wes’ mouth curved, in a small, secretive, little smile. “I’m glad,” he said, very gently.

“Yeah.” Blaine inhaled, deeply. “I’m glad too.”

 

* * *

 

The weeks until spring break unfurled, day by day, in a steady routine. Midterms approached, and Blaine flung himself whole-heartedly into studying with the other sophomores. AP exams were just around the corner after spring break, and all of their teachers seemed to have gotten caught up in a frenzy to teach the last of the mandated curriculum with enough time for them to forget it all weeks before the exams themselves. Every Sunday was Sunday Night Editing Frenzy, and they practically ensconced themselves in the library.

They performed in a handful of locations. Nursing homes. Charity fundraisers. The Dalton spirit week assembly. Blaine reprised a solo or two, but mostly he remained comfortably ensconced among the other tenors, listening to Nick and Jeff duet, or the freshmen trade off on verses.

Every morning, he lit a stick of incense and set it on the shrine in the corner of his room.

He had yet to dream of Sebastian, again. A part of him, that had grown used to wandering the realm of the dead, yearned to go back. The other part of him, tethered still to the realm of the living, was relieved. 

The days grew longer and warmer. The sun shone, bright and high, in the sky.

Blaine knelt before the smoke and said nothing.

 

* * *

 

“You’re back,” Sebastian’s father said.

Blaine, hand still on the front door, froze. Sebastian’s father stood in the hallway, a mug in hand, sleeves rolled up, his gaze as steady as Sebastian’s had always been. The steam furled, and Blaine inhaled rich coffee before he said, “It’s spring break.”

He nodded back. “Did you have trouble on the drive?”

Blaine shook his head. He dragged his suitcase in and shut the door.

Pleasantries done, Sebastian’s father turned to return to his study. Blaine clutched at his bag, his throat tight, before he blurted, “I took it.”

Sebastian’s father turned.

“The Courvoisier,” he said. “I took it, last year.”

Blaine had always been able to tell that Alexander Smythe didn’t live with a teenage boy in the house. His liquor cabinet was in the kitchen, easily reached, and unlocked. It had been easy to riffle through the bottles to find the cognac, and even easier to pour a shot into the thermos of freshly brewed coffee he had just prepared before carefully driving to the cemetery where Sebastian was buried.

It had been chilly, the sun barely beginning the rise, and the sky had still been gray with the lingering traces of night. Blaine had made the drive with his lights on, even as the sky lightened the closer he got to the cemetery.

Sebastian’s father said, “Did you?”

Blaine nodded. “Just a shot of it. To offer Sebastian.”

He wasn’t sure what response he expected. Anger? Disappointment? He was prepared for shame, for defensive stubbornness, but Sebastian’s father’s expression was blank and smooth, and nothing rose within Blaine in response.

He inhaled, quietly, and exhaled.

Sebastian’s father nodded, slowly. “He’s always been a precocious child.”

Blaine nodded, having nothing to say.

“When did you offer it?”

“In the morning.” He looked away. “I drove to the cemetery at dawn.”

“Is that something you want to do again, this year?”

Blaine inhaled, sharply. Last year, at this time, Sebastian had still been talking to him. “Yeah,” he said. 

“You have your license, this year.”

Blaine winced. “Yeah.”

“I’m more concerned at the illegal driving without a valid driver’s license than pouring a shot of liquor into an offering for Sebastian,” he said. “As well as taking it out in public. Possession of an alcoholic beverage when you’re underage is illegal, even if you aren’t drinking it.”

Blaine nodded.

He considered Blaine’s face. “We’re sweeping the plot in the afternoon, as usual. You can do what you’d like, on Tuesday morning.”

Blaine’s fingers loosened around the strap of his bag, involuntarily.

“Welcome home,” Sebastian’s father said, “I’m glad you’re back.”

Blaine smiled back. “I’m glad to be here.”

 

* * *

 

On Monday, Blaine drove into Columbus to visit Albert.

This close to tomb sweeping day, spiritual fervor kept Albert busy, his schedule packed with consultations and seances. Still, he was happy to carve out his lunch break to meet with Blaine, and they went to a nearby pub where they sat in the covered patio area with burgers and fries.

“So,” Albert said. “Too bad about Regionals.”

The bitterness had mostly faded, layered with the unsurprising revelation that Kurt would jump ship the minute the Warblers lost their chance at Nationals. Most of the Warblers were nursing that resentment now—more personal. “They did original songs,” Blaine conceded. “They deserved to make it through on that alone. Those were good songs.”

“You’re taking the loss remarkably well.”

He shrugged. They had made it through Regionals last year, only to get knocked out on the first round of National competition. “There’s always next year.” 

“That’s pragmatic.”

Blaine chewed a fry, the salt spreading on his tongue. He wondered if he would dream of the dead more consistently if he cut salt from his meals. “I can’t go back and change the past,” Blaine finally said. “I can’t run away from what happened either. All I can do is keep moving forward.”

Albert nodded. “You should be a medium, with that attitude.”

He chewed. “I don’t know if it’ll stick.”

Albert finished his burger, wiping his fingers off with a napkin. “What brought about this change?”

“Well, we lost.”

Despite being only in his twenties, Albert emulated a scathing look of paternal disappointment impeccably.

Blaine poked at his burger. “We aren’t talking about Regionals, are we?”

Albert raised an eyebrow, his expression so much like Sebastian’s that Blaine winced. “Are we?” he asked.

“Is this about Sebastian?”

“You asked to meet with _me_ ,” Albert pointed out. Blaine conceded the point and took a bite of his burger. “And I don’t deceive myself into thinking that you want to talk to me about your show choir result.”

Blaine swallowed his bite and took another one so he didn’t have to say anything.

Albert raised an eyebrow.

“I met Sebastian,” he finally said.

Albert’s face shifted, his brow furrowing, his mouth parting slightly. This is what Sebastian’s face should have looked like, when Blaine appeared before him—surprised for a flicker of a second before confusion set in. “In the realm of the dead,” he finally said.

He took another bite and nodded.

Albert picked through the fries before crunching one between his teeth. “And?”

“He didn’t want to see me.” He could say it, candidly, as if it had happened to somebody else. Maybe it had; the Blaine that entered the realm of the dead was the part of his soul that he had ripped from his body. Maybe it never fully returned to his body, remaining adrift in the world. “He asked why I was there.”

“And what did you say?”

“Because I married him.” He put the burger down. “But that wasn’t… it wasn’t the truth I wanted to say.”

Albert’s expression was a distorted reflection of Sebastian’s consideration. “And you haven’t been able to tell him what you wanted to say.”

He had a third of the burger left. He stared at it, chipped away bit by bit in small bites. “I need to go back. I need to tell him the truth. _My_ truth.”

“You can only go forward,” Albert said, considering. “You can’t run away from what happened. You can’t go back and change the past.”

“I need to make it right.” His hands folded, one atop of the other, on the table. “I didn’t, before. But I can tell him now. I can make it right, this time.”

His expression was steady, and Blaine could see the places where Albert was different from Sebastian. A little more thoughtful. A little less angry. It changed the planes of his face in unfamiliar patterns: a nose that twitched when it shouldn’t, a mouth that flattened instead of pursing. 

Albert said, “I told you, in August last year, that you are already far more connected to Sebastian than anybody else in this family.”

He swallowed.

He smiled, a little wryly. “I also said that I’d try, and ended up sending you into the realm of the dead.”

“I found him,” Blaine rasped. “I just need to—”

“Tomorrow,” Albert said, “we’ll go to the cemetery as a family. There will be rites and rituals. You’ll do your part in all of them, as Sebastian’s husband, but also as Uncle Alex’s _son_ , the one that remains.” His hand curved over a fork, before relaxing. “And then, you’ll go to bed.”

His breath hitched.

“You’ll dream,” Albert promised. “But you’ll have to find Sebastian on your own.”

“How do you know?” Blaine whispered.

He sighed. “Your soul’s already halfway in the realm of the dead. It only takes a small push to tip it over.”

“Then why hasn’t—”

“I don’t know. But this time I’ll be doing the tipping.” Albert’s fingers clenched into his palm. “And I’ll never do it again.”

 

* * *

 

Blaine woke up on Tuesday, just before dawn, the persistently buzzing alarm on his phone sending him down from Sebastian’s bedroom to the kitchen. There was already a thermos laid out, the bottle of Courvoisier next to it. There was no note, but Blaine could recall the empty countertops when he went to bed early last night.

He made coffee, grinding the beans by hand and percolating the grounds. The fragrance of the cognac mingled with the coffee when he uncorked the bottle, pouring a shot into the thermos before adding the coffee.

He chugged down a cup of his own, undoctored, before driving to Sebastian’s grave.

Alone, the cemetery yet to fill up with families, Blaine settled before the Smythe plot and poured the doctored coffee into the delicate cup, inhaling the aroma before bowing his head. Albert’s promise to send him to the realm of the dead lingered like the warmth of the steam against his cheeks.

He lit incense and let it burn as he held it: the flame a slow, steady descent towards his hands. Standing before Sebastian’s grave, coffee and cognac before him, incense in his hand, he could almost tumble into the myriad of Smythe houses, into the empty fields, into Sebastian, in a tower in the realm of the dead. 

He set the incense in the sand, driving it down with enough force that it stood tall and erect. He emptied the coffee into soft dirt by the family plot. The sun was rising, the birds singing morning song. 

“Sebastian,” Blaine mouthed. A dozen conversations lingered on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he just bowed his head, and murmured, into the morning sun, “Husband.”

 

* * *

 

Agarwood smoke clung to him, and he brushed it away to reveal a tower in the middle of a plain, stacked in a tiered pagoda. 

He had returned to the realm of the dead.

Last time, he had made this trek with Linda Smythe, her skirt fluttering just out of reach as she brought him to the man he married. This time, he walked alone, each step bringing him closer to his husband. When he reached the foot of the tower, he glanced up, and Sebastian was watching him from the window.

“Will you come down?” Blaine asked. “Or should I go up?”

“You’re back,” Sebastian replied, which wasn’t an answer at all.

“I need to talk to you,” he said. He had planned a dozen iterations of this conversation, and he let them scatter like smoke. Instead, he said, “It would be easier if we weren’t a tower apart.”

His gaze was steady and very green.

“I’ll go up.”

He climbed the tower, and time distorted, folding upon itself until Blaine was standing at the door to the room, and Sebastian was watching him with that same, steady, gaze. He stepped through the threshold, and Sebastian watched.

“Sebastian,” Blaine said.

“Blaine.”

He took a deep breath, his fingers splayed against his ribs. They expanded, bringing his lungs along, and when he exhaled they compressed with ease. He inhaled, again, and said, “I’m sorry.”

Sebastian blinked.

“I said the wrong thing, the last time I was here.”

“But you meant it.”

He shook his head. “I was running away.”

He had run away from his betrothal to Sebastian. He had run away from St. Ivers. He had run until confronted with a wall, and even then had found ways to keep running: parallel, instead of backwards, searching for a doorway. He had clung to his commitment because it meant he wouldn’t have to confront what it meant to be with Sebastian.

Because it meant he wouldn’t have to face what it meant to love Sebastian.

“Commitment,” Blaine admitted, “was easy.” He tipped his head to the side, taking in the stone walls, the wood paneling, before focusing back on Sebastian. “I married you, and eventually I stopped resenting it.”

“But you did.”

He nodded. “I did.”

The air was still and quiet. Agarwood crept in through the window, cloying and sweet.

“I thought it would be enough.” The words were ashes in his mouth, and he swallowed them down and continued. “I thought it would be enough, to be committed. I _wanted_ it to be enough. I was scared, of what it would mean, to love you.”

His eyes widened and his mouth parted slightly, an eerie replica of Albert Smythe’s expression.

“I love you,” Blaine said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you that before. I came to find you because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life without you. It isn’t enough to be committed to this marriage. It isn’t enough to reject anybody who comes across my path. I want to be married to you. I want you—”

“Blaine.”

“I want you in my house. I want your hand in mine. I want to walk through my life with you.”

Sebastian inhaled, a ragged tear.

Blaine turned away. “Sorry I couldn’t make those our wedding vows.”

He laughed, an involuntary snort, before he shook his head. “Blaine,” he said, wonderingly.

“I love you,” Blaine repeated. “I don’t need you to say it back—”

“I do,” Sebastian said. He shook his head, and then he reached forward, his hand finding Blaine’s, twisting his fingers in the spaces between Blaine’s. “I—” He stepped forward, and Blaine mirrored him. “I didn’t want you to die.”

He closed his eyes.

Sebastian’s other hand found his, and they stood, two feet apart, hand-in-hand. “I didn’t think you _would_ die, to find me.”

“I didn’t.”

“And then,” he said, as if Blaine had said nothing at all, “you said it was because you were my husband.” He pressed his forehead against Blaine’s, dipping down. He murmured, “I was so furious. You tore your soul out of your body because of duty. Out of a misguided sense of what you _should_ do, instead of wanting to.”

“It wasn’t,” he rasped. “I wanted to.”

“I know that _now_ ,” Sebastian admitted. “But I remembered a husband who flinched when I touched him.”

“It wasn’t you.”

He said, “Tell me later,” and Blaine acquiesced with a hum in his throat. “I’m—I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

Blaine closed his eyes, and didn’t say anything.

“I do,” Sebastian said.

“Love me?”

“Take you to be my husband.” He inhaled, sharply. “To love and cherish. To have and hold. For better or worse; for richer or poorer. Forever, until we’re reborn a thousand times over.”

Blaine’s fingers spasmed.

“I do,” he whispered, “Blaine.”

 

* * *

 

The next day, Blaine ate breakfast with both of Sebastian’s parents—Sebastian’s mother had flown into town for tomb sweeping day. Sebastian’s father was relaxed and pleasant despite having to go into the office soon. Sebastian’s mother had longer; Blaine agreed to drive her to the airport in the afternoon, and they ate breakfast in a leisurely rush.

After the plates were cleared, Blaine retreated to the family shrine to light incense for Sebastian. Sebastian’s mother followed, her slippers loud against the hardwood. Blaine bowed before the array of Smythes—Linda, smiling, not far behind Sebastian, perpetually young and perpetually growing—and then handed a stick of incense to Sebastian’s mother, who took it between her long fingers and bowed to her dead son.

She set it into the sand to burn, and turned away. Blaine followed, brushing his fingers across Sebastian’s portrait.

“Will you be visiting Paris, this summer?” she asked as they left the shrine behind.

“I think so.” He hadn’t planned out his summer yet; he had an offer at the theme park again, and he thought he might take them up on it. The school counselors were steering them towards practical summer internships, but another year of singing and dancing in too-large shoes couldn’t hurt his future prospects. “I’ve been learning French.”

“Ah bon?”

“Oui.”

She smiled, delighted. “Your accent is better.”

“Merci.”

“I would be happy to have you for the summer. However long you want to stay with me.”

Blaine nodded. “Sebastian,” he began. He cleared his throat. “Sebastian lived with you, right?”

“Yes.” She nodded, very slowly. “We had discussed him moving, moving here to Ohio. Maybe even to Dalton. But they had never been concrete.”

And now, he would go where Blaine went.

Blaine swallowed, and he offered, “I would have liked to be classmates with him.”

“He probably would have driven you mad,” she admitted. “Sebastian is stubborn.”

“I know.”

“Yes. You do.” She studied him, and something in the intensity of her gaze reminded him of Sebastian. She cupped Blaine’s cheek, as tenderly as Blaine’s own mother. “You seem happier,” she said.

She had last seen him in September. He pressed her hand, tilted his cheek into the warmth. “I am,” he said.

“Good.” She pressed her lips to his forehead. “You have your whole life ahead of you,” she murmured. “Don’t grow up too quickly.”

 

* * *

 

He dreamed of an endless starry sky, cloudless, and Sebastian, lying next to him, breathing in long steady breaths. He could have been content with this, Cassiopeia leading into Perseus, Sebastian’s presence steady beside him. He was content with it, listening to his husband inhale as he counted the stars, exhaling as he murmured the myths of each constellation as he identified them.

Finally, he stopped, the stars still high in the sky. Morning was far off, and Blaine had a while before he needed to wake. He turned, eyes tracing the freckles on Sebastian’s cheek as if they were constellations. “Tell me a story.” 

“What do you want to hear?”

He murmured, “Tell me why you died.”

Sebastian inhaled, softly. “I was drunk and walked into the street. The car came and hit me.”

“Is it true?”

He snorted. “Sure.”

“Alright.”

They lay under the stars, their pinkies linked. Finally, Sebastian said: “I was fifteen.”

Blaine’s fingers curled.

“Summer break was ending, and my mother asked if I wanted to go to the States for Christmas.”

“You said no.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Sebastian corrected. “I went out with my friends, and we got drunk—as drunk as fifteen-year-old boys could. I was walking home when the car showed up.”

Blaine inhaled.

“I didn’t walk into it,” he promised. “I just stopped. For a moment I wondered what it would be like if I didn’t have to go to the States. If I didn’t have to meet you. If I didn’t have to—”

Blaine twisted their fingers together.

“I waited for a little too long,” Sebastian said. “Just a few minutes too many.”

Blaine closed his eyes and listened to Sebastian’s breathing, Sebastian’s hand warm in his. He lay there, his heart fluttering within the healed cracks of his ribs. Then he said, “I was fourteen, and I asked a boy to a dance.”

This time, the words came easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/clahnjg4ewcvr5s/btwa_chapter12.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/171683470846/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew-chapter-12)


	13. Chapter 13

Exam season started, and the library tables filled as everybody rushed to cram. Blaine spent his free time with the other sophomores, and the Warbler chat was filled with negotiations to borrow notes and practice exams. Several students opted to go home every weekend for peace and quiet. Signs went up on half of the dorm doors for “Quiet Please”, and Wes reduced rehearsals to once a week.

“I think we should just accept that Jeff is going to get a 5 on the chem exam and the rest of us should be content with passing,” Nick offered, into the low murmurs of the library.

“Speak for yourself,” Thad retorted.

Blaine squinted at Jeff’s notes. Jeff tugged them out of Blaine’s grasp, pointing out, “The AP exam is curved. You’ll all be fine.”

“That so?” Nick dropped his pen with aplomb onto his notes, and then scrambled to make sure that it hadn’t marked anything important up. “In that case, I want to know what’s going on with Blaine’s dead husband.”

“I would like to study,” Blaine replied instantly.

Thad looked up from his notes. “Oh. I’ll take a break for this topic.” Jeff nodded, also looking interested.

Nick smirked in triumph. “Spill, Smythe.”

“There is nothing to spill,” Blaine protested, flushing.

“Shhhh,” a group nearby hissed. Nick obligingly lowered his voice. “So apparently you stopped talking to your dead husband for _months_.”

Blaine whispered, “Do we have to do this here?”

“And you didn’t tell us?” Nick shook his head. “I thought we were friends, Smythe.”

Jeff snorted, and then guiltily covered his mouth when the juniors nearby hissed angrily at them. Thad glared back at them.

Blaine tried, “It’s not a big deal?”

“Not a big deal?” Nick demanded.

“Be _quiet_ ,” the juniors hissed.

“Sorry.” Blaine offered an apologetic grimace. “Can you drop it?” he muttered. “We’re going to get kicked out of the library.”

“Or you could tell us,” Nick persisted. “And then we can go back to studying and we won’t even lose our table to freshmen.”

“What happened to personal privacy?” Blaine griped. He glanced at the others, hoping for assistance. Thad smirked, looking too amused at the exchange to do anything to stop it. Jeff, too, looked fascinated.

“I just want to know why you didn’t tell us.” Nick clutched at his heart dramatically—at least Blaine assumed he was attempting to clutch at his heart, given that Nick’s hands were closer to his sternum than his heart. “I thought we were friends, Blaine Smythe.”

“Oh my god,” Blaine breathed.

“Do you mind?” a junior snapped. “We’re trying to study here.”

The library hushed, enough blazer-clad boys glancing in their direction. Blaine stared, awkwardly, at his notes. Nick cleared his throat, just as awkwardly. Jeff and Thad exchanged looks. He could feel the prickle of dozens of gazes on the back of his neck.

In the silence, Jeff commented, “Nick does have a point.”

“Fine.” Blaine stood, gathering his books. The other sophomores slowly followed. “But we’re discussing this somewhere else.”

They ended up in Nick and Jeff’s shared room, after attempting the coffee stand and getting dissuaded by the number of upperclassmen who had spread themselves across the tiny tables with laptops and textbooks. There was enough floor space in Nick and Jeff’s dorm for them to spread their books out, and they did so in an abortive attempt to pretend they were studying instead of gossiping.

Blaine stared at the binders, wondering if he could avoid the conversation. He had managed to put it off for nine months already.

Nick didn’t even bother pretending to study. He leaned over the laptops, pushing the lid of Blaine’s down. “Spill.”

It had been nine months. The words unfurled, readily, and he said, “So, I may have sent my soul to the realm of the dead.”

 

* * *

 

“You won’t believe what I did today.”

“Well, I know that you didn’t steal Courvoisier from my father, since this coffee is non-alcoholic.”

Blaine stopped short; Sebastian was perched on Blaine’s tiny dorm room bed in shorts and a T-shirt, long legs folded as he sat cross-legged, sipping coffee out of the dainty porcelain cup he had purchased last lunar new year. His toes curled as he sipped. “Are you drinking coffee on my bed?”

Sebastian blinked. He glanced down, and then back up to meet Blaine’s gaze. “Am I not supposed to?”

“No,” he said. “It’s fine.” He peeled off his blazer, undid his tie and rolled up the sleeves of his button up, before deciding to forego the uniform entirely, changing into a T-shirt and shorts to join Sebastian. “I guess I’m not used to you visiting anymore.”

The corner of Sebastian’s mouth tightened. “Yeah.”

“It’s good,” Blaine hastily assured him. He took off his socks. “I missed this.”

Sebastian studied him, before saying, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You know what I missed?”

“If you say Courvoisier,” Blaine began, crawling onto the bed.

Sebastian smiled winsomely.

Blaine poked him in the side, sharply enough that Sebastian winced even as he twitched away, ticklish. The coffee sloshed in the cup, but didn’t spill. “I’m not going to sneak cognac into the dorms just so you can have it in your coffee.”

“But you’ll steal it from my father.” His grinned, sipping the coffee smugly.

“I didn’t steal it.”

Sebastian frowned.

“I asked him.” He shrugged. “Or, well, I told him that I took it last year, and he left it out on the kitchen counter so I could pour some for you before I went to visit your grave.”

“My father did?”

“He also gave me a lecture on underage possession of alcohol and strongly implied I should do my best not to get caught with doctored coffee in the car.”

He snorted. “That, I believe more.”

Blaine smiled, leaning against Sebastian’s shoulder. Sebastian shifted, winding an arm around Blaine’s waist, and offered Blaine the coffee. It was rich on the tongue, smooth and a little nutty—not the Dalton cafeteria coffee, but the beans Blaine had bought and ground for Sebastian in Paris.

“These have to be almost a year old.”

“Nothing’s perishable in the realm of the dead.”

Blaine scowled, but sipped the coffee again. “So you don’t need coffee every morning.”

“Isn’t it the thought that counts?” He nudged Blaine affectionately.

Blaine nudged back. “It’s an extra ten minutes to go back to my dorm and then to class.”

“I have a dutiful husband,” Sebastian drawled.

Blaine frowned.

Sebastian looked at him, before he leaned over to set the cup on the table. His hands were warm around Blaine’s, and his breath smelled like coffee as he leaned in and corrected in a murmur, “A husband who loves me.”

Blaine flushed.

He drew back, and Blaine tracked the movement through their fingers and palms, twisted and pressed together as Sebastian settled on the headboard, pulling him in to rest beside him, their fingers still entwined. “So, what did you do today?”

 

* * *

 

He sent Tala an email, letting her know that he and Sebastian had made up. She sent him three angry emails in response, asking for details, demanding to know what exactly happened, but Blaine managed to keep her at bay with his looming AP exams and finals.

Tala had responded by getting his parents involved.

“Seriously?” he hissed into his computer. “You told my mom?”

“I gave you three days to answer my emails,” Tala retorted, yawning halfway across the world. “That’s plenty of time.”

“A lot has happened! And I have a lot going on!”

Tala raised an eyebrow. It came across in a series of still frames, strung together a second apart. “I talk to Albert, you know.”

“You aren’t even related,” Blaine muttered.

Tala snorted. “You have a lot of spiritual issues. It’s going to take the both of us to handle all of it.”

“Okay,” Blaine said. He very politely did not roll his eyes. “This is my fault.”

“It’s not your fault,” Tala corrected, only sounding a little defensive. “It’s just a circumstance. The circumstance that we’ve been dealt.”

“I chose to marry Sebastian,” Blaine said, and he did sound defensive. “And I like being married to him.”

“Good,” Tala said. “You should be happy. Happy marriages lead to long lives. Better heath. Well-adjusted children.”

“I’m not having children anytime soon.”

“Also good.” She yawned again. “You’re too young for kids. Finish college first, and then we’ll talk.”

“Okay. Okay.” Blaine shook his head. “But did you have to get my parents involved?”

“Well, if I had known all of the details,” she began.

Blaine navigated the threads of emotion: frustration, annoyance, and driving need for privacy. He finally said, “I told you because I didn’t want you to worry. But Sebastian and I, we aren’t a sitcom for you to watch. You don’t need to know the details.”

Tala was quiet for long enough that Blaine wondered if the call had dropped. Then, she said, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Blaine sighed.

“Do you know how we sent your soul into the realm of the dead?”

Blaine said, steadily, “You loosened the hold it has on my body.”

“Not quite.” She propped her chin on her hand. “You were born an Anderson,” she said. “Your body is an Anderson body. But with your marriage, your soul became connected to Sebastian’s. Your soul had a connection to the Smythes that your body didn’t.”

He had appeared in Sebastian’s house. He had met Linda Smythe. The dragon had called him Blaine Smythe, and its eyes had been as green as Sebastian’s. 

He said, “You tied my soul to the Smythes.”

“I loosened it,” Tala confirmed. “And Albert tied it.” She shook her head. “Your soul already had a connection with Sebastian. We just… we just strengthened it.”

Blaine stared at her face—the dark eyes that he had recognized as his own for so many years distorted through the screen. 

“Your soul is tied to Sebastian’s now,” she said. “More than just marriage. You’re connected.”

There was a thread—something like fate, something like karma—that connected people’s souls. Some mediums said that you could feel its tug, something like gut instinct, something like love at first sight. It brought you your soulmate and laid them before you.

Blaine said, “Shouldn’t be good that we made up?”

There was a measure of silence, a long drawn out whole breath, and Tala began, as steady as a metronome, “Souls are unpredictable. And your soul has been to the realm of the dead and back. Last time I called, you told me that he wanted to leave you. And when you told me, I felt relief. Your soul would have no reason to leave your body and stay in the realm of the dead. And then you said that you were going back, that you went back and you and Sebastian made up. I want you to be happy. But you’ve had one foot in the grave for years now, Blaine. You spent this whole year trying to go to the realm of the _dead_ every night. How was I supposed to know if this wasn’t you trying to crawl in and cover yourself with dirt?”

“I don’t want to die,” Blaine protested. “And Sebastian doesn’t want me to either.”

“You can’t know that,” Tala began. “Your soul’s hold is loose already—”

“I don’t want to die,” Blaine repeated. He inhaled, deeply, and when he exhaled, he said. “I want to live.”

She was quiet.

He touched his ribs, and there was no pain.

“I want to live,” he repeated. “I want to call myself Blaine Smythe and carry him with me everywhere I go. I want to grow old with Sebastian at my side, calling myself his husband. I want to raise his child. I want to love him, and let myself love him.” The future unfurled before him, nebulous except for one thread of certainty, and he murmured, “I want to _live_.”

She smiled in a stutter of still frames. “Good,” she said. “Remember that.”

 

* * *

 

He opened his eyes, agarwood rich in the air, and he was in the realm of the dead. Before him stood lay a dragon, coiled upon itself, its scales a gleaming white, its eyes the same green as Sebastian’s. 

Blaine stared steadily back at it. This was a Smythe. 

“Blaine,” it said. It glanced beyond him, and said, “Sebastian.”

Blaine turned. Sebastian met his gaze, even as he strode over grassy plains and glossy scales to join Blaine before the Smythe guardian dragon. Shoulder pressed against shoulder, Blaine turned back to the dragon. “Are you here to ask me more questions?”

“Are you ready to speak the truth?”

“I almost died once,” Blaine said, readily. “My body broke, and it took a long time to piece it back together again. My soul never left my body, then, even though there were times when I wanted it to.”

“And this time?”

“This time, they pulled my soul out of my body and tied it to Sebastian’s.”

He studied Blaine. “And is that the truth?”

“It’s the truth that I know.” He glanced at Sebastian. “But this is the truth that I’d like. I’d like to think that my soul had always been tied to Sebastian’s. Maybe lifetimes ago, our souls found each other and tied themselves to each other. Maybe that’s how we found each other the first time. Maybe that’s how we’ll find each other in the future.” Sebastian’s breath hitched, and Blaine felt it in his shoulder, along his ribs, against the steady foundation of his legs. “Maybe that’s why I married Sebastian, because my soul knew something my body wasn’t ready to accept.”

The dragon considered his answer, the scales shifting in the light. “Sebastian?” it asked. “What do you think?”

Sebastian’s shoulder knocked against his, gently. “I think that I have a good husband.”

 

* * *

 

“Finals,” Nick groaned into his English notes. “How do we still have a chem final? Wasn’t the AP exam enough?”

“Shut up before we get kicked out of the library again,” Thad hissed, but the fervor of AP exams had died down and the reality of spring semester finals had yet to set in, and the library was relatively empty. 

Blaine squinted at his notes. It felt like all of the studying he had done for the AP exams had dissolved whatever he knew about the rest of his classes. He flipped through his notebook half-heartedly before giving up and turning on his computer.

“Are you checking SparkNotes?” Jeff asked.

“No!” Blaine laughed. “Why would I—”

He blinked at his inbox; he had a new email from Kurt.

“Blaine?” Thad asked, and Blaine stared at the computer. “There’s no way that SparkNotes is _that_ surprising…”

“It’s Kurt,” Blaine said.

Nick and Jeff looked up. Nick had the decency to temper his curiosity to mild interest.

Blaine opened the email; Kurt hadn’t tried to contact him since he had left for McKinley, and Blaine had briefly mourned the loss of a friend before midterms and then AP exams had swept over him. He had asked to meet for dinner, in a restaurant in Lima. Thad, who ignored Blaine’s scowl with a mouthed _Amelia_ , read over his shoulder.

Blaine stared at the email, before he typed a response.

“What did he want?” Nick asked.

Blaine switched to Wikipedia. “Dinner,” he said, readily. “In Lima.”

“What for?” Jeff asked.

“I don’t know.” He scrolled through the article, opening a word document to take notes. “He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”

Thad, who had read the email, nodded in corroboration.

Nick said, “Well, are you going to go?”

“No.”

Jeff raised a brow. “No?”

Blaine shook his head. “I told him I had finals. But I would be around for part of the summer, and we could get lunch or something then.”

Nick and Jeff exchanged glances. Thad cocked his head at Blaine. Blaine stared back, before turning to his computer. “Anyways. Wikipedia has an entire section on themes in Macbeth. I bet at least some of this is going to be useful for our paper.”

 

* * *

 

Wes graduated (with honors) and so did the rest of the seniors. Blaine performed the national anthem and their school song with the rest of the non-graduating Warblers, before they sat to the side to watch the Class of 2011 walk. 

David and Thad had been elected as council members again. Blaine had thought about running, and then decided that competition solos were more appealing than wrangling the freshmen. Sebastian had agreed, in a dream where they snuck onto the roof of the main Dalton building to watch the sun rise. Instead, Nick had gotten elected, sweeping the votes through goodwill engendered by successfully running the Warber betting pool. Nick had, with aplomb, passed betting pool duties to freshman Adrien.

“One last picture,” David called, snagging the graduated Warblers. They arranged themselves automatically, squeezing the five graduates into the center. Picture taken, it was a mess of shoulder claps and hugs, and Blaine found himself face-to-face with Wes.

“Congratulations,” Blaine said again.

Wes clapped him on the shoulder. “You have my email and my phone number.”

He nodded. “Yale, huh. Which one of your ancestors suggested it?”

Wes snorted. “One of the dead ones.”

“They still have opinions.”

“Not ones I can get phone calls about.” He squeezed his shoulder. “We can’t all be Blaine Smythe.”

Blaine smiled back.

“Good luck next year.” His hand dropped to his side. “You’ll make it to Nationals next year.” 

Blaine laughed. “Without your perfect pitch? We’ll crash out at Sectionals.”

Wes shook his head, seriously. “You’re a good singer,” he said. “And I know that you guys will do great next year.” He glanced over at the other Warblers. “Thad’ll keep you all in line instead.” He smirked. “Make sure you all listen to him.”

“I’ve always listened to authority,” Blaine protested.

Wes didn’t dignify that with a response. He pulled Blaine into a hug, slapping him on the back. “Don’t overthink it. You’ll do great.”

Blaine hugged back. “Come back and watch us perform. Yale’s not that far away.”

“I’ll come back for Regionals,” Wes promised. “You’ll have to at least make it that far on your own.”

Thad, Nick, and Jeff came up to extend their congratulations. David stood, chatting with Jared in his cap and gown. Beat, Trent, and the freshmen were laughing with the other graduated seniors. Blaine let himself breathe with the rhythm of the group, buffeted by the friendly jostle of his friends, bracketed by his brothers. 

“Not on my own,” he said. “Together.”

 

* * *

 

The cicadas were buzzing.

Blaine opened his eyes to the summer sun, the humidity of summer pressing against his skin. They sounded different, halfway across the world, but there was an eerie familiarity to the sound, regardless. 

“Blaine.”

“Sebastian,” he said.

They were in Paris, cobblestone beneath their feet. Around them, a faceless crowd churned, formless and indistinct compared to the solid clarity of his husband and the sound of cicadas in his ear. 

“You’re dreaming,” Sebastian offered. 

“They sound different.”

“They’re Parisian.” He stepped closer, his hand stretching to find Blaine’s. “You wouldn’t expect a Parisian to sound the same as an American.” 

“You sound like an American.”

Sebastian wrinkled his nose. “I blame my father.”

The laugh startled him, and he twisted his fingers with Sebastian’s, nudged his hip into his husband’s. “Hey,” he said. “About your father.”

“God.”

Blaine ignored the dramatic eyeroll. “He said you dance.”

He blinked, rapidly. “I did.”

“And you sang, a bit.”

“What’s this about?”

“I found your music.” Sebastian’s hand squeezed, and Blaine brushed a thumb over the back of his hand. “In the bottom of your desk drawer, in Ohio? I arranged it. Well, David helped.” He glanced up at Sebastian’s expression, something startled and open in the gaze. “It’s a duet now. But I’m not much of a dancer.”

“It’s not that important.”

“It’s your music,” Blaine said, and Sebastian didn’t protest any more, just smiled. Blaine continued, “We never got around to looking at the choreography. But I think it’s better this way. If you did it.” He took Sebastian’s other hand in his, letting them swing between them as they stood, face to face, toe to toe. 

Sebastian raised an eyebrow, but he was smiling.

“Choreograph a pas de deux for us.”

The sun was high and warm. Sebastian stepped forward, their hands still linked, until they stood, chest to chest in a close embrace. His cheek brushed against the top of Blaine’s head.

“Yes,” Sebastian whispered.

Blaine closed his eyes; like a kiss, the summer sun burned against his face: golden and luminous, full of promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Annotated PDF](https://www.dropbox.com/s/u2h4kn4gy3thyat/btwa_chapter13.pdf?dl=0) | [Reblog on Tumblr](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/171918730266/fic-glee-build-these-walls-anew-chapter-13)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, so very much, for joining me on this journey. I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> **Some extras**   
>  [Listen to a playlist of 13+1 songs.](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/171918355526/build-these-walls-anew-playlist)   
>  [Building Walls, post-writing commentary](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/171918710826/meta-build-these-walls-anew-post-writing)
> 
> Follow me on social media. I'm @virdant on [tumblr](http://virdant.tumblr.com) and now also [twitter](http://twitter.com/virdant) if you want to discuss fic or just life in general!
> 
> Kudos and comments always appreciated.


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